At the other side of the dock, set down upon a narrow space of rocky level land between the mountains and the river, was the little fishing village of Bizzett. In the rear the houses rose on terraces along the edge of the mountain and in front the town extended into the river on piles. There were no windows in the houses looking upon the street. If windows existed at all, they opened upon an inner court.
All the women and children of the town were on the dock, curious to see the travellers, filling the air with the babel of strange voices. It was plain that the landing of the yacht was an event. A few of the fishermen, who had not gone seaward upon their daily toil, were watching us from their boats.
Some of the women, after the manner of Turkish women, wore veils over their faces, having nothing but the eyes exposed, but the girls went about uncovered, their long black hair braided and ornamented with coins. The few of the male peasantry in sight were dressed much alike, in brown sheepskin caps, jackets of undyed brown wool, which their women folk spin and make, white cloth trousers and sandals of raw leather.
The natives were lively and hospitable. They greeted General Palmora with loud cheers as soon as he stepped on the dock and several of the older men came forward to shake him by the hand. The General, in anticipation of his reception, had donned a splendid uniform richly embossed with sparkling shoulder epaulettes and much gold braid. Nick, on the other hand, stood beside me attired in a plain dark blue serge suit which he had purchased in America. The women, walking two by two with their arms around each other's waists, examined us curiously, but the men never glanced once in our direction. Two young girls, without the least timidity, stopped in front of us and examined us as if we were tailors' models. That is to say, our clothes appeared to interest them more than the men inside of them. They talked and laughed and even went so far as to feel the texture of the goods. Their remarks made Nicholas frown.
"What are they saying, Nick?" I asked.
"They are saying, 'The English dogs have well trained wives who weave such fine cloth,'" he replied.
"You seem to be a stranger in your own country. These people take you for a foreigner."
"They do not know me," he sighed. "The penalty one pays for being a nomad. How they love the General!"
But the General's popularity faded when the automobile was placed upon the dock, and Teju Okio became the centre of attraction. The townsfolk crowded around the Jap boy, honked the horn with all the delight of mischievous newsboys and watched each piece of baggage as it was stowed away in the tonneau. But they departed with much speed and many frightened cries when Okio started the engine, running in all directions as if a demon had fallen from the sky in their midst. In a twinkling the dock was vacant and the village apparently deserted. They only came to the doors of their houses to watch us leave the village in a cloud of dust. But our attention was brought to the front by an expression of surprise from Teju Okio.
"Very dam-fine," he said, referring to the hill which the machine had to climb. Teju's English vocabulary was limited to three words which he used to express every emotion. This time it was admiration and respect. And the road was worthy of both. It ran diagonally up the side of the mountain until it reached the top at a depression or gap caused by two mountains pressing their foreheads together. One could see the end from the beginning, for it was a singularly straight road laid out as if the builder had placed a schoolboy's ruler upon the mountainside, drawn a line from the village to the gap and said, "Build ye here the way as I have drawn it," just as the Tzar is said to have laid out his eighteen-day railroad across Siberia.