In addition to a cycler's ordinary outfit and the before-mentioned small wedge tent I provide myself with a few extra spokes, a cake of tire cement, and an extra tire for the rear wheel. This latter, together with twenty yards of small, stout rope, I wrap snugly around the front axle; the tent and spare underclothing, a box of revolver cartridges, and a small bottle of sewing-machine oil are consigned to a luggage-carrier behind; while my writing materials, a few medicines and small sundries find a repository in my Whitehouse sole-leather case on a Lamson carrier, which also accommodates a suit of gossamer rubber.
The result of my study of the various routes through Asia is a determination to push on to Teheran, the capital of Persia, and there spend the approaching winter, completing my journey to the Pacific next season.
Accordingly nine o'clock on Monday morning, August 10th, finds me aboard the little Turkish steamer that plies semi-weekly between Ismidt and the Ottoman capital, my bicycle, as usual, the centre of a crowd of wondering Orientals. This Ismidt steamer, with its motley crowd of passengers, presents a scene that upholds with more eloquence than words Constantinople's claim of being the most cosmopolitan city in the world; and a casual observer, judging only from the evidence aboard the boat, would pronounce it also the most democratic. There appears to be no first, second, or third class; everybody pays the same fare, and everybody wanders at his own sweet will into every nook and corner of the upper deck, perches himself on top of the paddle-boxes, loafs on the pilot's bridge, or reclines among the miscellaneous assortment of freight piled up in a confused heap on the fore-deck; in short, everybody seems perfectly free to follow the bent of his inclinations, except to penetrate behind the scenes of the aftmost deck, where, carefully hidden from the rude gaze of the male passengers by a canvas partition, the Moslem ladies have their little world of gossip and coffee, and fragrant cigarettes. Every public conveyance in the Orient has this walled-off retreat, in which Osmanli fair ones can remove their yashmaks, smoke cigarettes, and comport themselves with as much freedom as though in the seclusion of their apartments at home.
Greek and Armenian ladies mingle with the main-deck passengers, however, the picturesque costumes of the former contributing not a little to the general Oriental effect of the scene. The dress of the Armenian ladies differs but little from Western costumes, and their deportment would wreathe the benign countenance of the Lord Chamberlain with a serene smile of approval; but the minds and inclinations of the gentle Hellenic dames seem to run in rather a contrary channel. Singly, in twos, or in cosey, confidential coteries, arm in arm, they promenade here and there, saying little to each other or to anybody else. By the picturesqueness of their apparel and their seemingly bold demeanor they attract to themselves more than their just share of attention; but with well-feigned ignorance of this they divide most of their time and attention between rolling cigarettes and smoking them. Their heads are bound with jaunty silk handkerchiefs; they wear rakish-looking short jackets, down the back of which their luxuriant black hair dangles in two tresses; but the crowning masterpiece of their costume is that wonderful garment which is neither petticoat nor pantaloons, and which can be most properly described as "indescribable," which tends to give the wearer rather an unfeminine appearance, and is not to be compared with the really sensible and not unpicturesque nether garment of a Turkish lady. The male companions of these Greek women are not a bit behind them in the matter of gay colors and startling surprises of the Levantine clothier's art, for they likewise are in all the bravery of holiday attire. There is quite a number of them aboard, and they now appear at their best, for they are going to take part in wedding festivities at one of the little Greek villages that nestle amid the vine-clad slopes along the coast - white villages, that from the deck of the moving steamer look as though they have been placed here and there by nature's artistic hand for the sole purpose of embellishing the lovely green frame-work that surrounds the blue waters of the Ismidt Gulf. Several of these merry-makers enliven the passing hours with music and dancing, to the delight of a numerous audience, while a second ever-changing but never-dispersing audience is gathered around the bicycle. The verbal comments and Solomon-like opinions, given in expressive pantomime, of this latter garrulous gathering concerning the machine and myself, I can of course but partly understand; but occasionally some wiseacre suddenly becomes inflated with the idea that he has succeeded in unravelling the knotty problem, and forthwith proceeds to explain, for the edification of his fellow-passengers, the modus operandi of riding it, supplementing his words by the most extraordinary gestures. The audience is usually very attentive and highly interested in these explanations, and may be considerably enlightened by their self-constituted tutors, whose sole advantage over their auditors, so far as bicycles are concerned, consists simply in a belief in the superiority of their own particular powers of penetration. But to the only person aboard the steamer who really does know anything at all about the subject, the chief end of their exposition seems to be gained when they have duly impressed upon the minds of their hearers that the bicycle is to ride on, and that it goes at a rate of speed quite beyond the comprehension of their - the auditors' - minds; "Bin, bin, bin. Chu, chu, chu. Haidi, haidi, haidi." being repeated with a vehemence that is intended to impress upon them little less than flying-Dutchman speed.
The deck of a Constantinople steamer affords splendid opportunity for character study, and the Ismidt packet is no exception. Nearly every person aboard has some characteristic, peculiar and distinct from any of the others. At intervals of about fifteen minutes a couple of Armenians, bare-footed, bare-legged, and ragged, clamber with much difficulty and scraping of shins over a large pile of empty chicken-crates to visit one particular crate. Their collective baggage consists of a thin, half-grown chicken tied by both feet to a small bag of barley, which is to prepare it for the useful but inglorious end of all chickendom. They have imprisoned their unhappy charge in a crate that is most difficult to get at. Why they didn't put it in one of the nearer crates, what their object is in climbing up to visit it so frequently, and why they always go together, are problems of the knottiest kind.
A far less difficult riddle is the case of a middle-aged man, whose costume and avocation explain nothing, save that he is not an Osmanli. He is a passenger homeward bound to one of the coast villages, and he constantly circulates among the crowd with a basket of water-melons, which he has brought aboard "on spec," to vend among his fellow-passengers, hoping thereby to gain sufficient to defray the cost of his passage. Seated on whatever they can find to perch upon, near the canvas partition, all unmoved by the gay and stirring scenes before them, is a group of Mussulman pilgrims from some interior town, returning from a pilgrimage to Stamboul - fine-looking Osmanli graybeards, whose haughty reserve not even the bicycle is able to completely overcome, although it proves more efficacious in subduing it and waking them out of their habitual contemplative attitude than anything else aboard. Two of these men are of magnificent physique; their black eyes, rather full lips, and swarthy skins betraying Arab blood. In addition to the long daggers and antiquated pistols so universally worn in the Orient, they are armed with fine, large, pearl-handled revolvers, and they sit cross-legged, smoking cigarette after cigarette in silent meditation, paying no heed even to the merry music and the dancing of the Greeks.
At Jelova, the first village the steamer halts at, a coupleof zaptiehs come aboard with two prisoners whom they are conveying to Ismidt. These men are lower-class criminals, and their wretched appearance betrays the utter absence of hygienic considerations on the part of the Turkish prison authorities; they evidently have had no cause to complain of any harsh measures for the enforcement of personal cleanliness. Their foot-gear consists of pieces of rawhide, fastened on with odds and ends of string; and pieces of coarse sacking tacked on to what were once clothes barely suffice to cover their nakedness; bare-headed - their bushy hair has not for months felt the smoothing influence of a comb, and their hands and faces look as if they had just endured a seven-years' famine of soap and water. This latter feature is a sure sign that they are not Turks, for prisoners are most likely allowed full liberty to keep themselves clean, and a Turk would at least have come out into the world with a clean face.
The zaptiehs squat down together and smoke cigarettes, and allow their charges full liberty to roam wheresoever they will while on board, and the two prisoners, to all appearances perfectly oblivious of their rags, filth, and the degradation of their position, mingle freely with the passengers; and, as they move about, asking and answering questions, I look in vain among the latter for any sign of the spirit of social Pharisaism that in a Western crowd would have kept them at a distance. Both these men have every appearance of being the lowest of criminals - men capable of any deed in the calendar within their mental and physical capacities; they may even be members of the very gang I am taking this steamer to avoid; but nobody seems to either pity or condemn them; everybody acts toward them precisely as they act toward each other. Perhaps in no other country in the world does this social and moral apathy obtain among the masses to such a degree as in Turkey.
While we lie to for a few minutes to disembark passengers at the village where the before-mentioned wedding festivities are in progress, four of the seven imperturbable Osmanlis actually arise from the one position they have occupied unmoved since coming aboard, and follow me to the foredeck, in order to be present while I explain the workings and mechanism of the bicycle to some Arnienian students of Roberts College, who can speak a certain amount of English. Having listened to my explanations without understanding a word, and, without condescending to question the Armenians, they survey the machine some minutes in silence and then return to their former positions, their cigarettes, and their meditations, paying not the slightest heed to several caique loads of Greek merry-makers who have rowed out to meet the new arrivals, and are paddling around the steamer, filling the air with music. Finding that there is someone aboard that can converse with me, the Greeks, desirous of seeing the bicycle in action, and of introducing a novelty into the festivities of the evening, ask me to come ashore and be their guest until the arrival of the next Ismiclt boat - a matter of three days. Offer declined with thanks, but not without reluctance, for these Greek merry-makings are well worth seeing. The Ismidt packet, like everything else in Turkey, moves at a snail's pace, and although we got under way in something less than an hour after the advertised starting-time, which, for Turkey, is quite commendable promptness, and the distance is but fifty-five miles, we call at a number of villages en route, and it is 6 P.M. when we tie up at the Ismidt wharf.
"Five piastres, Effendi," says the ticket-collector, as, after waiting till the crowd has passed the gang-plank, I follow with the bicycle and hand him my ticket.
"What are the five piastres for." I ask. For answer, he points' to my wheel. "Baggage," I explain.
"Baggage yoke, cargo," he replies; and I have to pay it. The fact is, that, never having seen a bicycle before, he don't know whether it is cargo or baggage; but whenever a Turkish official has no precedent to follow, he takes care to be on the right side in case there is any money to be collected; otherwise he is not apt to be so particular. This is, however, rather a matter of private concern than of zealousness in the performance of his official duties; the possibilities of peculation are ever before him.
While satisfying the claim of the ticket-collector a deck-hand comes forward and, pointing to the bicycle, blandly asks me for backsheesh. He asks, not because he has put a finger to the machine, or been asked to do so, but, being a thoughtful, far-sighted youth, he is looking out for the future. The bicycle is something he never saw on his boat before; but the idea that these things may now become common among the passengers wanders through his mind, and that obtaining backsheesh on this particular occasion will establish a precedent that may be very handy hereafter; so he makes a most respectful salaam, calls me "Bey Effendi," and smilingly requests two piastres backsheesh. After him comes the passport officer, who, besides the teskeri for myself, demands a special passport for the machine. He likewise is in a puzzle (it don't take much, by the by, to puzzle the brains of a Turkish official), because the bicycle is something he has had no previous dealings with; but as this is a matter in which finances play no legitimate part - though probably his demand for a passport is made for no other purpose than that of getting backsheesh - a vigorous protest, backed up by the unanimous, and most certainly vociferous, support of a crowd of wharf-loafers, and my fellow-passengers, who, having disembarked, are waiting patiently for me to come and ride down the street, either overrules or overawes the officer and secures my relief. Impatient at consuming a whole day in reaching Ismidt, I have been thinking of taking to the road immediately upon landing, and continuing till dark, taking my chances of reaching some suitable stopping- place for the night. But the good people of Ismidt raise their voices in protest against what they professedly regard as a rash and dangerous proposition. As I evince a disposition to override their well-meant interference and pull out, they hurriedly send for a Frenchman, who can speak sufficient English to make himself intelligible. Speaking for himself, and acting as interpreter in echoing the words and sentiments of the others, the Frenchman straightway warns me not to start into the interior so late in the day, and run the risk of getting benighted in the brush; for "Much very bad people, very bad people! are between Ismidt and Angora; Circassians plenty," he says, adding that the worst characters are near Ismidt, and that the nearer I get to Angora the better I shall find the people. As by this time the sun is already setting behind the hills, I conclude that an early start in the morning will, after all, be the most sensible course.
During the last Russo-Turkish war thousands of Circassian refugees migrated to this part of Asia Minor. Having a restless, roving disposition, that unfits them for the laborious and uneventful life of a husbandman, many of them remain even to the present day loafers about the villages, maintaining themselves nobody seems to know how. The belief appears to be unanimous, however, that they are capable of any deviltry under the sun, and that, while their great specialty and favorite occupation is stealing horses, if this becomes slack or unprofitable, or even for the sake of a little pleasant variety, these freebooters from the Caucasus have no hesitation about turning highwaymen whenever a tempting occasion offers. All sorts of advice about the best way to avoid being robbed is volunteered by the people of Ismidt. My watch-chain, L.A.W. badge, and everything that appears of any value, they tell me, must be kept strictly out of sight, so as not to excite the latent cupidity of such Circassians as I meet on the road or in the villages. Some advocate the plan of adorning my coat with Turkish official buttons, shoulder-straps, and trappings, to make myself, look like a government officer; others think it would be best to rig myself up as a full-blown zaptieh, with whom, of course, neither Circassian nor any other guilty person would attempt to interfere. To these latter suggestions I point out that, while they are very good, especially the zaplieh idea, so far as warding off Circassians is concerned, my adoption of a uniform would most certainly get me into hot water with the military authorities of every town and village, owing to my ignorance of the vernacular, and cause me no end of vexatious delay. To this the quick-witted Frenchman replies by at once offering to go with me to the resident pasha, explain the matter to him, and get a letter permitting me to wear the uniform; which offer I gently but firmly decline, being secretly of the opinion that these excessive precautions are all unnecessary. From the time I left Hungary I have been warned so persistently of danger ahead, and have so far met nothing really dangerous, that I am getting sceptical about there being anything like the risk people seem to think. Without being blind to the fact that there is a certain amount of danger in travelling alone through a country where it is the universal custom either to travel in company or to take a guard, I feel quite confident that the extreme novelty of my conveyance will make so profound an impression on the Asiatic mind that, even did they know that my buttons are gold coins of the realm, they would hesitate seriously to molest me. From past observations among people seeing the bicycle ridden for the first time, I believe that with a hundred yards of smooth road it is quite possible for a cycler to ride his way into the good graces of the worst gang of freebooters in Asia.
Having decided to remain here over-night, I seek the accommodation of a rudely comfortable hotel, kept by an Armenian, where, at the supper-table, I am first made acquainted with the Asiatic dish called "pillau," that is destined to form no inconsiderable part of my daily bill of fare for several weeks. Pillau is a dish that is met - with in one disguise or another all over Asia. With a foundation of boiled rice, it receives a variety of other compounds, the nature of which will appear as they enter into my daily experiences. In deference to the limited knowledge of each other's language possessed by myself and the proprietor, I am invited into the cookhouse and permitted to take a peep at the contents of several different pots and kettles simmering over a slow fire in a sort of brick trench, to point out to the waiter such dishes as I think I shall like. Failing to find among the assortment any familiar acquaintances, I try the pillau, and find it quite palatable, preferring it to anything else the house affords.
Our friend the Frenchman is quite delighted at the advent of a bicycle in Ismidt, for in his younger days, he tells me with much enthusiasm, he used to be somewhat partial to whirling wheels himself; and when he first came here from France, some eighteen years ago, he actually brought with him a bone-shaker, with which, for the first summer, he was wont to surprise the natives. This relic of by-gone days has been stowed away among a lot of old traps ever since, all but forgotten; but the appearance of a mounted wheelman recalls it to memory, and this evening, in honor of my visit, it is brought once more to light, its past history explained by its owner, and its merits and demerits as a vehicle in comparison with my bicycle duly discussed. The bone-shaker has wheels heavy enough for a dog-cart; the saddle is nearly all gnawed away by mice, and it presents altogether so antiquated an appearance that it seems a relic rather of a past century than of a past decade. Its owner assays to take a ride on it; but the best he can do is to wabble around a vacant space in front of the hotel, the awkward motions of the old bone-shaker affording intense amusement to the crowd. After supper this chatty and entertaining gentleman brings his wife, a rotund, motherly-looking person, to see the bicycle; she is a Levantine Greek, and besides her own lingua franca, her husband has improved her education to the extent of a smattering of rather misleading English. Desiring to be complimentary in return for my riding back and forth a few times for her special benefit, the lady comes forward as I dismount and, smiling complacently upon me, remarks, "How very grateful you ride, monsieur!" and her husband and tutor, desiring also to say something complimentary, echoes, " Much grateful - very."
The Greeks seem to be the life and poetry of these sea-coast places on the Ismidt gulf. My hotel faces the water; and for hours after dark a half-dozen caique-loads of serenaders are paddling about in front of the town, making quite an entertaining concert in the silence of the night, the pleasing effect being heightened by the well-known softening influence of the water, and not a little enhanced by a display of rockets and Roman candles. Earlier in the evening, while taking a look at Ismidt and the surrounding scenery, in company with a few sociable natives, who point out beauty-spots in the surrounding landscape with no little enthusiasm, I am impressed with the extreme loveliness of the situation. The town itself, now a place of thirteen thousand inhabitants, is the Nicomedia of the ancients. It is built in the form of a crescent, facing the sea; the houses, many of them painted white, are terraced upon the slopes of the green hills, whose sides and summits are clothed with verdure, and whose bases are laved by the blue waves of the gulf, which here, at the upper extremity, narrows to about a mile and a half in width; white villages dot the green mountain-slopes on the opposite shore, prominent among them being the Armenian town of Bahgjadjik, where for a number of years has been established an American missionary-school, a branch, I think, of Roberts College. Every mile of visible country, whether gently sloping or more rugged and imposing, is green with luxuriant vegetation, and the waters of the gulf are of that deep-blue color peculiar to mountain-locked inlets; the bright green hills, the dancing blue waters, and the white painted villages combine to make a scene so lovely in the chastened light of early eventide that, after the Bosporus, I think I never saw a place more beautiful. Besides the loveliness of the situation, the little mountain-sheltered inlet makes an excellent anchorage for shipping; and during the late war, at the well-remembered crisis when the Russian armies were bearing down on Constantinople and the British fleet received the famous order to pass through the Dardanelles with or without the Sultan's permission, the head-waters of the Ismidt gulf became, for several months, the rendezvous of the ships.
Early dawn on Tuesday morning finds me already astir and groping about the hotel in search of some of the slumbering employees to let me out. Pocketing a cold lunch in lieu of eating breakfast, I mount and wheel down the long street leading out of the eastern end of town. On the way out I pass a party of caravan-teamsters who have just arrived with a cargo of mohair from Angora; their pack-mules are fairly festooned with strings of bells of all sizes, from a tiny sleigh-bell to a solemn-voiced sheet-iron affair the size of a two-gallon jar. These bells make an awful din; the men are unpacking the weary animals, shouting both at the mules and at each other, as if their chief object were to create as much noise as possible; but as I wheel noiselessly past, they cease their unpacking and their shouting, as if by common consent, and greet me with that silent stare of wonder that men might be supposed to accord to an apparition from another world. For some few miles a rough macadam road affords a somewhat choppy but nevertheless ridable surface, and further inland it develops into a fairly good roadway, where a dismount is unnecessary for several miles. The road leads along a depression between a continuation of the mountain-chains that inclose the Ismidt gulf, which now run parallel with my road on either hand at the distance of a couple of miles, some of the spurs on the south range rising to quite an imposing height. For four miles out of Ismidt the country is flat and swampy; beyond that it changes to higher ground; and the swampy flat, the higher ground, and the mountain-slopes are all covered with timber and a dense growth of underbrush, in which wild-fig shrubs and the homely but beautiful ferns of the English commons, the Missouri Valley woods, and the California foot-hills, mingle their respective charms, and hob-nob with scrub-oak, chestnut, walnut, and scores of others. The whole face of the country is covered with this dense thicket, and the first little hamlet I pass on the road is nearly hidden in it, the roofs of the houses being barely visible above the green sea of vegetation. Orchards and little patches of ground that have been cleared and cultivated are hidden entirely, and one cannot help thinking that if this interminable forest of brushwood were once to get fairly ablaze, nothing could prevent it from destroying everything these villagers possess.
A foretaste of what awaits me farther in the interior is obtained even within the first few hours of the morning, when a couple of horsemen canter at my heels for miles; they seem delighted beyond measure, and their solicitude for my health and general welfare is quite affecting. When I halt to pluck some blackberries, they solemnly pat their stomachs and shake their heads in chorus, to make me understand that blackberries are not good things to eat; and by gestures they notify me of bad places in the road which are yet out of sight ahead. Eude mehanax, now called khans, occupy little clearings by the roadside, at intervals of a few miles; and among the habitues congregated there I notice several of the Circassian refugees on whose account friends at Ismidt and Constantinople have shown themselves so concerned for my safety.
They are dressed in the long Cossack coats of dark cloth peculiar to the inhabitants of the Caucasus; two rows of bone or metal cartridge-cases adorn their breast, being fitted into flutes or pockets made for them; they wear either top boots or top bootlegs, and the counterpart of my own moccasins; and their headdress is a tall black lamb's-wool turban, similar to the national headgear of the Persians. They are by far the best-dressed and most respectable-looking men one sees among the groups; for while the majority of the natives are both ragged and barefooted, I don't remember ever seeing Circassians either. To all outward appearances they are the most trustworthy men of them all; but there is really more deviltry concealed beneath the smiling exterior of one of these homeless mountaineers from Circassia than in a whole village of the less likely- looking natives here, whose general cutthroat appearance - an effect produced, more than anything else, by the universal custom of wearing all the old swords, knives, anil pistols they can get hold of-really counts for nothing. In picturesqueness of attire some of these khan loafers leave nothing to be desired; and although I am this morning wearing Igali's cerulean scarf as a sash, the tri-colored pencil string of Servia around my neck, and a handsome pair of Circassian moccasins, I ain absolutely nowhere by the side of many a native here whose entire wardrobe wouldn't fetch half a mcdjedie in a Galata auction-room. The great light of Central Asian hospitality casts a glimmer even up into this out-of-the-way northwestern corner of the continent, though it seems to partake more of the Nevada interpretation of the word than farther in the interior. Thrice during the forenoon I am accosted with the invitation "mastic? cogniac? coffee." by road-side klian-jees or their customers who wish me to stop and let them satisfy their consuming curiosity at my novel bagar (horse), as many of them jokingly allude to it. Beyond these three beverages and the inevitable nargileh, these wayside khans provide nothing; vishner syrup (a pleasant extract of the vishner cherry; a spoonful in a tumbler of water makes a most agreeable and refreshing sherbet), which is my favorite beverage on the road, being an inoffensive, non-intoxicating drink, is not in sufficient demand among the patrons of the khans to justify keeping it in stock. An ancient bowlder causeway traverses the route I am following, hut the blocks of stone composing it have long since become misplaced and scattered about in confusion, making it impassable for wheeled vehicles; and the natural dirt-road alongside it is covered with several inches of dust which is continually being churned up by mule-caravans bringing mohair from Angora and miscellaneous merchandise from Ismidt. Camel-caravans make smooth tracks, but they seldom venture to Ismidt at this time of the year, I am told, on account of the bellicose character of the mosquitoes that inhabit this particular region; their special mode of attack being to invade the camels' sensitive nostrils, which drives these patient beasts of burden to the last verge of distraction, sometimes even worrying them to death. Stopping for dinner at the village of Sabanja, the scenes familiar in connection with a halt for refreshments in the Balkan Peninsula are enacted; though for bland and childlike assurance there is no comparison between the European Turk and his brother in Asia Minor. More than one villager approaches me during the few minutes I am engaged in eating dinner, and blandly asks me to quit eating and let him see me ride; one of them, with a view of putting it out of my power to refuse, supplements his request with a few green apples which no European could eat without bringing on an attack of cholera morbus, but which Asiatics consume with impunity. After dinner I request the proprietor to save me from the madding crowd long enough to round up a few notes, which he attempts to do by locking me in a room over the stable. In less than ten minutes the door is unlocked, and in walks the headman of the village, making a most solemn and profound salaam as he enters. He has searched out a man who fought with the English in the Crimea, according to his - the man's-own explanation, and who knows a few words of Frank language and has brought him along to interpret. Without the slightest hesitation he asks me to leave off writing and come down and ride, in order that he may see the performance, and - he continues, artfully - that he may judge of the comparative merits of a horse and a bicycle.
This peculiar trait of the Asiatic character is further illustrated during the afternoon in the case of a caravan leader whom I meet on an unridable stretch of road. "Bin! bin!" says this person, as soon as his mental faculties grasp the idea that the bicycle is something to ride on. "Mimlcin, deyil; fenna yole; duz yolo lazim " (impossible; bad road; good road necessary), I reply, airing my limited stock of Turkish. Nothing daunted by this answer, the man blandly requests me to turn about and follow his caravan until ridable road is reached - a good mile - in order that he may be enlightened. It is, perhaps, superfluous to add that, so far as I know, this particular individual's ideas of 'cycling are as hazy and undefined to-day as they ever were.
The principal occupation of the Sabanjans seems to be killing time; or perhaps waiting for something to turn up. Apple and pear-orchards are scattered about among the brush, looking utterly neglected; they are old trees mostly, and were planted by the more enterprising ancestors of the present owners, who would appear to be altogether unworthy of their sires, since they evidently do nothing in the way of trimming and pruning, but merely accept such blessings as unaided nature vouchsafes to bestow upon them. Moss-grown gravestones are visible here and there amid the thickets; the graveyards are neither protected by fence nor shorn of brush; in short, this aggressive undergrowth appears to be altogether too much for the energies of the Sabanjans; it seems to be encroaching upon them from every direction, ruthlessly pursuing them even to their very door-sills; like Banquo's ghost, it will not down, and the people have evidently retired discouraged from the contest. Higher up on the mountain-slopes the underbrush gives place to heavier timber, and small clearings abound, around which the unsubdued forest stands like a solid wall of green, the scene reminding one quite forcibly of backwoods clearings in Ohio; and were it not for the ancient appearance of the Sabanja minarets, the old bowlder causeway, and other evidences of declining years, one might easily imagine himself in a new country instead of the cradle of our race.
At Sabanja the wagon-road terminates, and my way becomes execrable beyond anything I ever encountered; it leads over a low mountain-pass, following the track of the ancient roadway, that on the acclivity of the mountain has been torn up and washed about, and the stone blocks scattered here and piled up there by the torrents of centuries, until it would seem to have been the sport and plaything of a hundred Kansas cyclones. Bound about and among this disorganized mass, caravans have picked their way over the pass from the first dawn of commercial intercourse; following the same trail year after year, the stepping-places have come to resemble the steps of a rude stairway. From the summit of the pass is obtained a comprehensive view of the verdure-clad valley; here and there white minarets are seen protruding above the verdant area, like lighthouses from a green sea; villages dot the lower slopes of the mountains, while a lake, covering half the width of the valley for a dozen miles, glimmers in the mid-day sun, making altogether a scene that in some countries would long since have been immortalized on canvas or in verse. The descent is even rougher, if anything, than the western side, but it leads down into a tiny valley that, if situated near a large city, would resound with the voices of merry-makers the whole summer long. The undergrowth of this morning's observations has entirely disappeared; wide-spreading chestnut and grand old sycamore trees shade a circumscribed area of velvety greensward and isolated rocks; a tiny stream, a tributary of the Sackaria, meanders along its rocky bed, and forest-clad mountains tower almost perpendicularly around the charming little vale save one narrow outlet to the east. There is not a human being in sight, nor a sound to break the silence save the murmuring of the brook, as I fairly clamber down into this little sylvan retreat; but a wreath of smoke curling above the trees some distance from the road betrays the presence of man. The whole scene vividly calls to mind one of those marvellous mountain-retreats in which writers of banditti stories are wont to pitch their heroes' silken tent - no more appropriate rendezvous for a band of story-book free-booters could well be imagined.
Short stretches of ridable mule-paths are found along this valley as I follow the course of the little stream eastward; they are by no means continuous, by reason of the eccentric wanderings of the rivulet; but after climbing the rough pass one feels thankful for even small favors, and I plod along, now riding, now walking, occasionally passing little clusters of mud huts and meeting with pack animals en route to Ismidt with the season's shearing of mohair. "Alia Franga!" is the greeting I am now favored with, instead of the "Ah, I'Anglais." of Europe, as I pass people on the road; and the bicycle is referred to as an araba, the name the natives give their rude carts, and a name which they seem to think is quite appropriate for anything with wheels.
Following the course of the little tributary for several miles, crossing and recrossing it a number of times, I finally emerge with it into the valley of Sackaria. There are some very good roads down this valley, which is narrow, and in places contracts to but little more than a mere neck between the mountains. At one of the narrowest points the mountains present an almost perpendicular face of rock and here are the remnants of an ancient stonewall reputed to have been built by the Greeks, somewhere about the twelfth century in anticipation of an invasion of the Turks from the south. The wall stretches across the valley from mountain to river, and is quite a massive affair; an archway has been cut through it for the passage of caravans. Soon after passing through this opening I am favored with the company of a horseman, who follows me for three or four miles, and thoughtfully takes upon himself the office of telling me when to bin and when not to bin, according as he thinks the road suitable for 'cycling or not, until he discovers that his gratuitous advice produces no visible effect on my movements, when he desists and follows along behind in silence like a sensible fellow. About five o'clock in the afternoon I cross the Sackaria on an old stone bridge, and half an hour later roll into Geiveh, a large village situated in the middle of a triangular valley about seven miles in width. My cyclometer shows a trifle over forty miles from Ismidt; it has been a variable forty miles; I shall never forget the pass over the old causeway, the view of the Sabanja Valley from the summit, nor the lovely little retreat on the eastern side.
Trundling through the town in quest of a khan, I am soon surrounded by a clamorous crowd; and passing the house or office of the mudir or headman of the place, that person sallies forth, and, after ascertaining the cause of the commotion, begs me to favor the crowd and himself by riding round a vacant piece of ground hard by. After this performance, a respectable-looking man beckons me to follow him, and he takes me - not to his own house to be his guest, for Geiveh is too near Europe for this sort of thing - to a khan kept by a Greek with a mote in one eye, where a "shake down" on the floor, a cup of coffee or a glass of vishner is obtainable, and opposite which another Greek keeps an eating-house. There is no separate kitchen in this latter establishment as in the one at Isrnidt; one room answers for cooking, eating, nargileh-smoking, coffee- sipping, and gossiping; and while I am eating, a curious crowd watches my every movement with intense interest. Here, as at Ismidt, I am requested to examine for myself the contents of several pots. Most of them contain a greasy mixture of chopped meat and tomatoes stewed together, with no visible difference between them save in the sizes of the pieces of meat; but one vessel contains pillau, and of this and some inferior red wine I make my supper. Prices for eatables are ridiculously low; I hand him a cherik for the supper; he beckons me out of the back door, and there, with none save ourselves to witness the transaction, he counts me out two piastres change, which left him ten centa for the supper. He has probably been guilty of the awful crime of charging me about three farthings over the regular price, and was afraid to venture upon so iniquitous a proceeding in the public room lest the Turks should perchance detect him in cheating an Englishman, and revenge the wrong by making him feed me for nothing. It rains quite heavily during the night, and while waiting for it to dry up a little in the morning, the Geivehites voluntarily tender me much advice concerning the state of the road ahead, being governed in their ideas according to their knowledge of a 'cycler's mountain-climbing ability. By a round dozen of men, who penetrate into my room in a body ere I am fairly dressed, and who, after solemnly salaaming in chorus, commence delivering themselves of expressive pantomime and gesticulations, I am led to understand that the road from Geiveh to Tereklu is something fearful for a bicycle. One fat old Turk, undertaking to explain it more fully, after the others have exhausted their knowledge of sign language, swells himself up like an inflated toad and imitates the labored respiration of a broken-winded horse in order to duly impress upon my mind the physical exertion I may expect to put forth in "riding"-he also paws the air with his right foot-over the mountain-range that looms up like an impassable barrier three miles east of the town. The Turks as a nation have the reputation of being solemn-visaged, imperturbable people, yet one occasionally finds them quite animated and "Frenchy" in their behavior - the bicycle may, however, be in a measure responsible for this. The soil around Geiveh is a red clay that, after a shower, clings to the rubber tires of the bicycle as though the mere resemblance in color tended to establish a bond of sympathy between them that nothing could overcome, I pass the time until ten o'clock in avoiding the crowd that has swarmed the khan since early dawn, and has been awaiting with Asiatic patience ever since. At ten o'clock I win the gratitude of a thousand hearts by deciding to start, the happy crowd deserting half-smoked nargilehs, rapidly swallowing tiny cups of scalding-hot coffee in their anxiety lest I vault into the saddle at the door of the khan and whisk out of their sight in a moment - an idea that is flitting through the imaginative mind of more than one Turk present, as a natural result of the stories his wife has heard from his neighbor's wife, whose sister, from the roof of her house, saw me ride around the vacant space at the mudir's request yesterday. The Oriental imagination of scores of wondering villagers has been drawn upon to magnify that modest performance into a feat that fills the hundreds who didn't see it with the liveliest anticipations, and a murmuring undercurrent of excitement thrills the crowd as the word goes round that I am about to start. A minority of the people learned yesterday that I wouldn't ride across the stones, water- ditches, and mud-holes of the village streets, and these at once lead the way, taking upon themselves the office of conducting me to the road leading to the Kara Su Pass; while the less enlightened majority press on behind, the more restless spirits worrying me to ride, those of more patient disposition maintaining a respectful silence, but wondering why on earth I am walking.
The road they conduct me to is another of those ancient stone causeways that traverse this section of Asia Minor in all directions. This one and several others I happen to come across are but about three feet wide, and were evidently built for military purposes by the more enterprising people who occupied Constantinople and the adjacent country before the Turks-narrow stone pathways built to facilitate the marching of armies during the rainy season when the natural ground hereabout is all but impassable. These stone roads were probably built during the Byzantine occupation. Fairly smooth mule-paths lead along-side this relic of departed greatness and energy, and the warm sun having dried the surface, I mount and speed away from the wondering crowd, and in four miles reach the foot of the Kara Su Pass. From this spot I can observe a small caravan, slowly picking its way down the mountain; the animals are sometimes entirely hidden behind rocks, as they follow the windings and twistings of the trail down the rugged slope which the old Turk this morning thought would make me puff to climb.
A little stream called the Kara Su, or black water, comes dancing out of a rocky avenue near by; and while I am removing my foot-gear to ford it, I am joined by several herdsmen who are tending flocks of the celebrated Angora goats and the peculiar fat-tailed sheep of the East, which are grazing on neighboring knolls. These gentle shepherds are not overburdened with clothing, their nakedness being but barely covered; but they wear long sword-knives and old flint-lock, bell-mouthed horse- pistols that give them a ferocious appearance that seems strangely at variance with their peaceful occupation. They gather about me with a familiarity that impresses me anything but favorably toward them; they critically examine my clothing from helmet to moccasins, eying my various belongings wistfully, tapping my leather case, and pinching the rear package to try and ascertain the nature of its contents. I gather from their remarks about "para " (a term used in a general sense for money, as well as for the small coin of that name), as they regard the leather case with a covetous eye, that they are inclined to the opinion that it contains money; and there is no telling the fabulous wealth their untutored minds are associating with the supposed treasure-chest of a Frank who rides a silver "araba." Evidently these fellows have never heard of the tenth commandment; or, having heard of it, they have failed to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it for the improvement of their moral natures; for covetousness beams forth from every lineament of their faces and every motion of their hands. Seeing this, I endeavor to win them from the moral shackles of their own gloomy minds by pointing out the beautiful mechanism of my machine; I twirl the pedals and show them how perfect are the bearings of the rear wheel; I pinch the rubber tire to show them that it is neither iron nor wood, and call their attention to the brake, fully expecting in this usually winsome manner to fill them with gratitude and admiration, and make them forget all about my baggage and clothes. But these fellows seem to differ from those of their countrymen I left but a short time ago; my other effects interest them far more than the wheel does, and one of them, after wistfully eying my moccasins, a handsomer pair, perhaps, than he ever saw before, points ruefully down to his own rude sandals of thong-bound raw-hide, and casts a look upon his comrades that says far more eloquently than words, "What a shame that such lovely moccasins should grace the feet of a Frank and an unbeliever - ashes on his head - while a true follower of the Prophet like myself should go about almost barefooted!" There is no mistaking the natural bent of these gentle shepherds' inclinations, and as, in the absence of a rusty sword and a seventeenth-century horse pistol, they doubtless think I am unarmed, my impression from their bearing is that they would, at least, have tried to frighten me into making them a present of my moccasins and perhaps a few other things. In the innocence of their unsophisticated natures, they wist not of the compact little weapon reposing beneath my coat that is as superior to their entire armament as is a modern gunboat to the wooden walls of the last century. Whatever their intentions may be, however, they are doomed never to be carried out, for their attention is now attracted by the caravan, whose approach is heralded by the jingle of a thousand bells.
The next two hours find me engaged in the laborious task of climbing a mere bridle-path up the rugged mountain slope, along which no wheeled vehicle has certainly ever been before. There is in some places barely room for pack animals to pass between the masses of rocks, and at others, but a narrow ledge between a perpendicular rock and a sheer precipice. The steepest portions are worn into rude stone stairways by the feet of pack animals that toiled over this pass just as they toiled before America was discovered and have been toiling ever since; and for hundreds of yards at a stretch I am compelled to push the bicycle ahead, rear wheel aloft, in the well-known manner of going up-stairs. While climbing up a rather awkward place, I meet a lone Arab youth, leading his horse by the bridle, and come near causing a serious accident. It was at the turning of a sharp corner that I met this swarthy-faced youth face to face, and the sudden appearance of what both he and the horse thought was a being from a far more distant sphere than the western half of our own so frightened them both that I expected every minute to see them go toppling over the precipice. Reassuring the boy by speaking a word or two of Turkish, and seeing the impossibility of either passing him or of his horse being able to turn around, I turn about and retreat a short distance, to where there is more room. He is not quite assured of my terrestrial character even yet; he is too frightened to speak, and he trembles visibly as he goes past, greeting me with a leer of mingled fear and suspicion; at the same time making a brave but very sickly effort to ward off any evil designs I might be meditating against him by a pitiful propitiatory smile which will haunt my memory for weeks; though I hope by plenty of exercise to escape an attack of the nightmare.
This is the worst mountain climbing I have done with a bicycle; all the way across the Rockies there is nothing approaching this pass for steepness; although on foot or horseback it would of course not appear so formidable. When part way up, a bank of low hanging clouds come rolling down to meet me, enveloping the mountain in fog, and bringing on a disagreeable drizzle which scarcely improves the situation.
Five miles from the bottom of the pass and three hours from Geiveh I reach a small postaya-khan, occupied by one zaptieh and the station-keeper, where I halt for a half hour and get the zaptieh to brew me a cup of coffee, feeling the need of a, little refreshment after the stiff tugging of the last two hours. Coffee is the only refreshment obtainable here, and, though the weather looks anything but propitious, I push ahead toward a regular roadside khan, which I am told I shall come to at the distance of another hour - the natives of Asia Minor know nothing of miles or kilometres, but reckon the distance from point to point by the number of hours it usually takes to go on horseback. Reaching this khan at three o'clock, I call for something to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and am forthwith confronted with a loaf of black bread, villanously heavy, and given a preliminary peep into a large jar of a crumbly white substance as villanously odoriferous as the bread is heavy, and which I think the proprietor expects me to look upon as cheese. This native product seems to be valued by the people here in proportion as it is rancid, being regarded by them with more than affection when it has reached a degree of rancidness and odoriferousness that would drive a European - barring perhaps, a Limburger - out of the house. These two delicacies, and the inevitable tiny cups of black bitter coffee make up all the edibles the khan affords; so seeing the absence of any alternative, I order bread and coffee, prepared to make the most of circumstances. The proprietor being a kindly individual, and thinking perhaps that limited means forbid my indulgence in such luxuries as the substance in the earthenware jar, in the kindness of his heart toward a lone stranger, scoops out a small portion with his unwashed hand, puts it in a bowl of water and stirs it about a little by way of washing it, drains the water off through his fingers, and places it before me. While engaged in the discussion of this delectable meal, a caravan of mules arrives in charge of seven rough-looking Turks, who halt to procure a feed of barley for their animals, the supplying of which appears to be the chief business of the klian-jee. No sooner have these men alighted and ascertained the use of the bicycle, than I am assailed with the usual importunities to ride for their further edification. It would be quite as reasonable to ask a man to fly as to ride a bicycle anywhere near the khan; but in the innocence of their hearts and the dulness of their Oriental understandings they think differently. They regard my objections as the result of a perverse and contrary disposition, and my explanation of mimkin deyil" as but a groundless excuse born of my unwillingness to oblige. One old gray-beard, after examining the bicycle, eyes me meditatively for a moment, and then comes forward with a humorous twinkle in his eye, and pokes me playfully in the ribs, and makes a peculiar noise with the mouth: " q-u-e-e-k," in an effort to tickle me into good-humor and compliance with their wishes; in addition to which, the artful old dodger, thinking thus to work on my vanity, calls me "Pasha Effendi." Finding that toward their entreaties I give but the same reply, one of the younger men coolly advocates the use of force to coerce me into giving them an exhibition of my skill on the araba. As far as I am able to interpret, this bold visionary's argument is: "Behold, we are seven; Effendi is only one; we are good Mussulmans - peace be with us - he is but a Frank - ashes on his head- let us make him bin."