One does not expect comfort in an unheated railway carriage, with snow a foot and a half deep, and the temperature 15° below zero. As we left Angora we also noticed that one of the carriage windows was missing, and a courteous official kept back the train to insert one from another compartment! We were grateful, indeed, for even then the cold was hard to bear.
The little engine is now ploughing its way downhill but still slowly, since halts are needed to renew its strength for the double task of “traction” and sweeping away the snow.
We are well supplied with food for a five-days’ journey, so that over a cheerful meal we can almost forget to feel frozen, and soon find we have covered the thirty-five hours to Eski-Chéir.
From Eski-Chéir to Kada-Keuy, where the lines have been cut, is a short distance; but, mercifully, it is not so cold as in the mountains. From there we travel in a yaili (native carriage) which has evidently seen better days and, let us hope, better springs. They have been removed altogether from one side, and we should have been easier without the worn remnants on the other! As there are no seats, one has to be propped up by any available rugs or cushions, unless you prefer lying down at full length. But the little cart is lined with red-cotton brocade, while green curtains, looking-glasses, and tassels complete the “decoration”! It must be delightful to saunter along on a summer’s day; and draw your curtains for a night in the open; but even the straw, the mattress, and many rugs cannot transform the yaili to a train de luxe in winter.
To catch “the express” at Bilidjik we have to drive in two and a half hours a distance that requires a much longer time. So, with good horses and a fearless driver, we rattle away, up hill and down, over bumps and stones. The luggage is thrown out, my thermos is shaken to pieces, and we are flung violently against the roof! Bruised and bleeding, we hold on in grim silence; since time, too, flies.
The Yaili, or Native Carriage, with Drawn Curtains.
Even at this pace we cannot escape the oppression of desolation. On every side lie smashed engines, burnt railway carriages, and villages in cinders. As dusk falls, only a fatalist, in a country of fatalists, could venture the rush down sharp descents cut through a precipice of 800 feet!
Fate, indeed, preserved us, only to prove its irony; for when we reached the once prosperous Bilidjik, still beautiful in its ruins, we hear that a landslip on the line has made traffic impossible for some days to come. In Anatolia, one must be ready to do as the Anatolians; and we are faced with the prospect of a night under the frost-laden skies. There is not even a chair to be found, though “kindness” quickly contrives a seat for me from a pile of logs. Here I can rest awhile; and by brisk walks at short intervals probably keep up my circulation until the welcome dawn....
Someone, however, suggested that we should beg for shelter in one of the luggage-vans already crowded with men and women—naturally, in separate compartments. One thought of the poor villagers we had seen huddled together in their holes on the mountains; and realised that even the floor of a luggage-van may be a “luxury.”