THROUGH THE ANGORA GOAT COUNTRY.
The other members of the caravan company, while equally anxious to see the performance, and no doubt thinking me quite an unreasonable person, disapprove of the young man's proposition; and the Man-jee severely reprimands him for talking about resorting to force, and turning to the others, he lays his forefingers together and says something about Franks, Mussulmans, Turks, and Ingilis; meaning that even if we are Franks and Mussulmans, we are not prevented from being at the same time allies and brothers. From the khan the ascent is more gradual, though in places muddy and disagreeable from the drizzling rain which still falls, and about 4 P.M. I arrive at the summit. The descent is smoother, and shorter than the western slope, but is even more abrupt; the composition is a slaty, blue clay, in which the caravans have worn trails so deep in places that a mule is hidden completely from view. There is no room for animals to pass each other in these deep trench-like trails, and were any to meet, the only possible plan is for the ascending animals to be backed down until a wider place is reached. There is little danger of the larger caravans being thus caught in these " traps for the unwary," since each can hear the other's approach and take precautions; but single horsemen and small parties must sometimes find themselves obliged to either give or take, in the depths of these queer highways of commerce. It is quite an awkward task to descend with the bicycle, as for much of the way the trail is not even wide enough to admit of trundling in the ordinary manner, and I have to adopt the same tactics in going down as in coming up the mountain, with the difference, that on the eastern slope I have to pull back quite as stoutly as I had to push forward on the western. In going down I meet a man with three donkeys, but fortunately I am able to scramble up the bank sufficiently to let him pass. His donkeys are loaded with half-ripe grapes, which he is perhaps taking all the way to Constantinople in this slow and laborious manner, and he offers me some as an inducement for me to ride for his benefit. Some wheelmen, being possessed of a sensitive nature, would undoubtedly think they had a right to feel aggrieved or insulted if offered a bunch of unripe grapes as an inducement to go ahead and break their necks; but these people here in Asia Minor are but simple-hearted, overgrown children; they will go straight to heaven when they die, every one of them.
At six o'clock I roll into Tereklu, having found ridable road a mile or so before reaching town. After looking at the cyclometer I begin figuring up the number of days it is likely to take me to reach Teheran, if yesterday and to-day have been expository of the country ahead; forty and one-third miles yesterday and nineteen and a half to-day, thirty miles a day-rather slow progress for a wheelman, I mentally conclude; but, although I would rather ride from " Land's End to John O'Groat's " for a task, than bicycle over the ground I have traversed between here and Ismidt, I find the tough work interlarded with a sufficiency of novel and interesting phases to make the occupation congenial. Upon dismounting at Tereklu, I find myself but little fatigued with the day's exertions, and with a view to obtaining a little peace and freedom from importunities to ride after supper, I gratify Asiatic curiosity several times before undertaking to allay the pangs of hunger - a piece of self-denial quite commendable, even if taken in connection with the idea of self-protection, when one reflects that I had spent the day in severe exercise, and had eaten since morning only a piece of bread.
Not long after my arrival at Tereklu I am introduced to another peculiar and not unknown phase of the character of these people, one that I have sometimes read of, but was scarcely prepared to encounter before being on Asian soil three days. From some of them having received medical favors from the medicine chest of travellers and missionaries, the Asiatics have come to regard every Frank who passes through their country as a skilful physician, capable of all sorts of wonderful things in the way of curing their ailments; and immediately after supper I am waited upon by my first patient, the mulazim of the Tereklu zaptiehs. He is a tall, pleasant-faced fellow, whom I remember as having been wonderfully courteous and considerate while I was riding for the people before supper, and he is suffering with neuralgia in his lower jaw. He comes and seats himself beside me, rolls a cigarette in silence, lights it, and hands it to me, and then, with the confident assurance of a child approaching its mother to be soothed and cured of some ailment, he requests me to cure his aching jaw, seemingly having not the slightest doubt of my ability to afford him instant relief. I ask him why he don't apply to the hakim (doctor) of his native town. He rolls another cigarette, makes me throw the half-consumed one away, and having thus ingratiated himself a trifle deeper into my affections, he tells me that the Tereklu hakim is "fenna; " in other words, no good, adding that there is a duz hakim at Gieveh, but Gieveh is over the Kara Su dagh. At this juncture he seems to arrive at the conclusion that perhaps I require a good deal of coaxing and good treatment, and, taking me by the hand, he leads me in that affectionate, brotherly manner down the street and into a coffee-Maw, and spends the next hour in pressing upon me coffee and cigarettes, and referring occasionally to his aching jaw. The poor fellow tries so hard to make himself agreeable and awaken my sympathies, that I really begin to feel myself quite an ingrate in not being able to afford him any relief, and slightly embarrassed by my inability to convince him that my failure to cure him is not the result of indifference to his sufferings.
Casting about for some way of escape without sacrificing his good-will, and having in mind a box of pills I have brought along, I give him to understand that I am at the top of the medical profession as a stomach-ache hakim, but as for the jaw-ache I am, unfortunately, even worse than his compatriot over the way. Had I attempted to persuade him that I was not a doctor at all, he would not have believed me; his mind being unable to grasp the idea of a Frank totally unacquainted with the noble AEsculapian art; but he seems quite aware of the existence of specialists in the profession, and notwithstanding my inability to deal with his particular affliction, my modest confession of being unexcelled in another branch of medicine seems to satisfy him. My profound knowledge of stomachic disorders and their treatment excuses my ignorance of neuralgic remedies.
There seems to be a larger proportion of superior dwelling-houses in Tereklu than in Gieveh, although, to the misguided mind of an unbeliever from the West, they have cast a sort of a funereal shadow over this otherwise desirable feature of their town by building their principal residences around a populous cemetery, which plays the part of a large central square. The houses are mostly two-story frame buildings, and the omnipresent balconies and all the windows are faced with close lattice-work, so that the Osmanli ladies can enjoy the luxury of gazing contemplatively out on the area of disorderly grave-stones without being subjected to the prying eyes of passers-by. In the matter of veiling their faces the women of these interior towns place no such liberal - not to say coquettish - interpretation upon the office of the yashmak as do their sisters of the same religion in and about Constantinople. The ladies of Tereklu, seemingly, have a holy horror of displaying any of their facial charms; the only possible opportunity offered of seeing anything, is to obtain an occasional glimpse of the one black eye with which they timidly survey you through a small opening in the folds of their shroud-like outer garment, that encases them from head to foot; and even this peeping window of their souls is frequently hidden behind the impenetrable yashmak. Mussulman women are the most gossipy and inquisitive creatures imaginable; a very natural result, I suppose, of having had their feminine rights divine under constant restraint and suppression by the peculiar social position women occupy in Mohammedan countries. When I have arrived in town and am surrounded and hidden from outside view by a solid wall of men, it is really quite painful to see the women standing in small groups at a distance trying to make out what all the excitement is about. Nobody seems to have a particle of sympathy for their very natural inquisitiveness, or even to take any notice of their presence. It is quite surprising to see how rapidly the arrival of the Frank with the wonderful araba becomes known among these women from one end of town to another; in an incredibly short space of time, groups of shrouded forms begin to appear on the housetops and other vantage-points, craning their necks to obtain a glimpse of whatever is going on.
In the innocence of an unsophisticated nature, and a feeling of genuine sympathy for their position, I propose collecting these scattered groups of neglected females together and giving an exhibition for their especial benefit, but the men evidently regard the idea of going to any trouble out of consideration for them as quite ridiculous; indeed, I am inclined to think they regard it as evidence that I am nothing less than a gay Lothario, who is betraying altogether too much interest in their women; for the old school Osmanli encompasses those hapless mortals about with a green wall of jealousy, and regards with disapproval, even so much as a glance in their direction. While riding on one occasion, this evening, I noticed one over-inquisitive female become so absorbed in the proceedings as to quite forget herself, and approach nearer to the crowd than the Tereklu idea of propriety would seem to justify. In her absent-mindedness, while watching me ride slowly up and dismount, she allowed her yashmak to become disarranged and reveal her features. This awful indiscretion is instantly detected by an old Blue-beard standing by, who eyes the offender severely, but says nothing; if she is one of his own wives, or the wife of an intimate friend, the poor lady has perhaps earned for herself a chastisement with a stick later in the evening.
Human nature is pretty much the same in the Orient as anywhere else; the degradation of woman to a position beneath her proper level has borne its legitimate fruits; the average Turkish woman is said to be as coarse and unchaste in her conversation as the lowest outcasts of Occidental society, and is given to assailing her lord and master, when angry, with language anything but choice.
It is hardly six o'clock when I issue forth next morning, but there are at least fifty women congregated in the cemetery, alongside which my route leads. During the night they seem to have made up their minds to grasp the only opportunity of "seeing the elephant" by witnessing my departure; and as, "when a woman will she will," etc., applies to Turkish ladies as well as to any others, in their laudable determination not to be disappointed they have been patiently squatting among the gray tombstones since early dawn. The roadway is anything but smooth, nevertheless one could scarce be so dead to all feelings of commiseration as to remain unmoved by the sight of that patiently waiting crowd of shrouded females; accordingly I mount and pick my way along the street and out of town. Modest as is this performance, it is the most marvellous thing they have seen for many a day; not a sound escapes them as I wheel by, they remain as silent as though they were the ghostly population of the graveyard they occupy, for I which, indeed, shrouded as they are in white from head to foot, they might easily be mistaken by the superstitious. My road leads over an undulating depression between the higher hills, a region of small streams, wheat-fields, and irrigating ditches, among which several trails, leading from Tereklu to numerous villages scattered among the mountains and neighboring small valleys, make it quite difficult to keep the proper road. Once I wander off my proper course for several miles; finding out my mistake I determine upon regaining the Torbali trail by a short cut across the stubble-fields and uncultivated knolls of scrub oak. This brings me into an acquaintanceship with the shepherds and husbandmen, and the ways of their savage dogs, that proves more lively than agreeable. Here and there I find primitive threshing-floors; they are simply spots of level ground selected in a central position and made smooth and hard by the combined labors of the several owners of the adjoining fields, who use them in common. Rain in harvest is very unusual; therefore the trouble and expense of covering them is considered unnecessary. At each of these threshing-centres I find a merry gathering of villagers, some threshing out the grain, others winnowing it by tossing it aloft with wooden, flat-pronged forks; the wind blows the lighter chaff aside, while the grain falls back into the heap. When the soil is sandy, the grain is washed in a neighboring stream to take out most of the grit, and then spread out on sheets, in the sun to dry before being finally stored away in the granaries. The threshing is done chiefly by the boys and women, who ride on the same kind of broad sleigh-runner-shaped boards described in European Turkey.
The sight of my approaching figure is, of course, the signal for a general suspension of operations, and a wondering as to what sort of being I am. If I am riding along some well-worn by-trail, the women and younger people invariably betray their apprehensions of my unusual appearance, and seldom fail to exhibit a disposition to flee at my approach, but the conduct of their dogs causes me not a little annoyance. They have a noble breed of canines throughout the Angora goat country - fine animals, as large as Newfoundlands, with a good deal the appearance of the mastiff; and they display their hostility to my intrusion by making straight at me, evidently considering me fair game. These dogs are invaluable friends, but as enemies and assailants they are not exactly calculated to win a 'cycler's esteem. In my unusual appearance they see a strange, undefinable enemy bearing down toward their friends and owners, arid, like good, faithful dogs, they hesitate not to commence the attack; sometimes there is a man among the threshers and winnowers who retains presence of mind enough to notice the dogs sallying forth to attack me, and to think of calling them back; but oftener I have to defend myself as best I can, while the gaping crowd, too dumfounded and overcome at my unaccountable appearance to think of anything else, simply stare as though expecting to see me sail up into space out of harm's way, or perform some other miraculous feat. My general tactics are to dismount if riding, and manoeuvre the machine- so as to keep it between myself and my savage assailant if there be but one; and if more than one, make feints with it at them alternately, not forgetting to caress them with a handy stone whenever occasion offers. There is a certain amount of cowardice about these animals notwithstanding their size and fierceness; they are afraid and suspicious of the bicycle as of some dreaded supernatural object; atnd although I am sometimes fairly at my wit's end to keep them at bay, I manage to avoid the necessity of shooting any of them. I have learned that to kill one of these dogs, no matter how great the provocation, would certainly get me into serious trouble with the natives, who value them very highly and consider the wilful killing of one little short of murder; hence my forbearance. When I arrive at a threshing-floor, and it is discovered that I am actually a human being and do not immediately encompass the destruction of those whose courage has been equal to awaiting my arrival, the women and children who have edged off to some distance now approach, quite timidly though, as if not quite certain of the prudence of trusting their eyesight as to the peaceful nature of my mission; and the men vie with each other in their eagerness to give me all desired information about my course; sometimes accompanying me a considerable distance to make sure of guiding me aright. But their contumacious canine friends seem anything but reassured of my character or willing to suspend hostilities; in spite of the friendly attitude of their masters and the peacefulness of the occasion generally, they make furtive dashes through the ranks of the spectators at me as I wheel round the small circular threshing-floor, and savagely snap at the revolving wheels. Sometimes, after being held in check until I am out of sight beyond a knoll, these vindictive and determined assailants will sneak around through the fields, and, overtaking me unseen, make stealthy onslaughts upon me from the brush; my only safety is in unremitting vigilance. Like the dogs of most semi-civilized peoples, they are but imperfectly trained to obey; and the natives dislike checking them in their attacks upon anybody, arguing that so doing interferes with the courage and ferocity of their attack when called upon for a legitimate occasion.