Hittite Bas-relief and Inscription
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 æons 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.
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 "à 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,seulementpour 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 "Amān" 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]
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. "Amān, amān," 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 anincognito."
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 "désolé" 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."