Later in the evening a couple of young Turkish dandies come round to the khan and favor me with a serenade; one of them twangs a doleful melody on a small stringed instrument, something like the Slavonian tamborica, and the other one sings a doleful, melancholy song (nearly all songs and tunes in Mohammedan countries seem doleful and melancholy); afterwards an Arab camel-driver joins in with a dance, and furnishes some genuine amusement with his hip-play and bodily contortions; this would scarcely be considered dancing from our point of view, but it is according to the ideas of the East. The dandies are distinguishable from the common run of Turkish bipeds, like the same species in other countries, by the fearful and wonderful cut of their garments. The Turkish dandy wears a tassel to his fez about three times larger than the regulation size, and he binds it carefully down to the fez with a red and yellow silk handkerchief; he wears a jaunty-looking short jacket of bright blue cloth, cut behind so that it reaches but little below his shoulder-blades; the object of this is apparently to display the whole of the multifold kammerbund, a wonderful, colored waist-scarf that is wound round and round the waist many times, and which is held at one end by an assistant, while the wearer spins round like a dancing dervish, the assistant advancing gradually as the human bobbin takes up the length. The dandy wears knee-breeches corresponding in color to his jacket, woollen stockings of mingled red and black, and low, slipper-like shoes; he allows his hair to fall about his eyes a la negligee, and affects a reckless, love- lorn air.
The last party of sight-seers for the day call around near midnight, some time after I have retired to sleep; they awaken me with their garrulous observations concerning the bicycle, which they are critically examining close to my head with a classic lamp; but I readily forgive them their nocturnal intrusion, since they awaken me to the first opportunity of hearing women wailing for the dead. A dozen or so of women are wailing forth their lamentations in the silent night but a short distance from the khan; I can look out of a small opening in the wall near my shake-down, and see them moving about the house and premises by the flickering glare of torches. I could never have believed the female form divine capable of producing such doleful, unearthly music; but there is no telling what these shrouded forms are really capable of doing, since the opportunity of passing one's judgment upon their accomplishments is confined solely to an occasional glimpse of a languishing eye. The kahvay-jee, who is acting the part of explanatory lecturer to these nocturnal visitors, explains the meaning of the wailing by pantomimically describing a corpse, and then goes on to explain that the smallest imaginable proportion of the lamentations that are making night hideous is genuine grief for the departed, most of the uproar being made by a body of professional mourners hired for the occasion. When I awake in the morning the unearthly wailing is still going vigorously forward, from which I infer they have been keeping it up all night. Though gradually becoming inured to all sorts of strange scenes and customs, the united wailing and lamentations of a houseful of women, awakening the echoes of the silent night, savor too much of things supernatural and unearthly not to jar unpleasantly on the senses; the custom is, however, on the eve of being relegated to the musty past by the Ottoman Government.
In the larger cities where there are corpses to be wailed over every night, it has been found so objectionable to the expanding intellects of the more enlightened Turks that it has been prohibited as a public nuisance, and these days it is only in such conservative interior towns as Bey Bazaar that the custom still obtains. When about starting early on the following morning the khanjee begs me to be seated, and then several men who have been waiting around since before daybreak vanish hastily through the door-way; in a few minutes I am favored with a small company of leading citizens who, having for various reasons failed to swell yesterday's throng, have taken the precaution to post these messengers to watch my movements and report when I am ready to depart. Our grunting patient, the crazy man, likewise reappears upon the scene of my departure from the khan, and, in company with a small but eminently respectable following, accompanies me to the brow of a bluffy hill leading out of the depression in which Bey Bazaar snugly nestles. On the way up he constantly gives utterance to his feelings in guttural gruntings that make last night's lamentations seem quite earthly after all in comparison; and when the summit is reached, and I mount and glide noiselessly away down a gentle declivity, he uses his vocal organs in a manner that simply defies chirographical description or any known comparison; it is the despairing howl of a semi-lunatic at witnessing my departure without having exercised my supposed extraordinary powers in some miraculous manner in his behalf. The road continues as an artificial highway, but is not continuously ridable, owing to the rocky nature of the material used in its construction and the absence of vehicular traffic to wear it smooth; but it is highly acceptable in the main. From Bey Bazaar eastward it leads for several miles along a stony valley, and then through a region that differs little from yesterday's barren hills in general appearance, but which has the redeeming feature of being traversed here and there by deep canons or gorges, along which meander tiny streams, and whose wider spaces are areas of remarkably fertile soil. While wheeling merrily along the valley road I am favored with a "peace-offering" of a splendid bunch of grapes from a bold vintager en route, to Bey Bazaar with a grape-laden donkey. When within a few hundred yards the man evinces unmistakable signs of uneasiness concerning my character, and would probably follow the bent of his inclinations and ingloriously flee the field, but his donkey is too heavily laden to accompany him: he looks apprehensively at my rapidly approaching figure, and then, as if a happy thought suddenly occurs to him, he quickly takes the finest bunch of grapes ready to hand and holds them, out toward me while I am yet a good fifty yards away. The grapes are luscious, and the bunch weighs fully an oke, but I should feel uncomfortably like a highwayman, guilty of intimidating the man out of his property, were I to accept them in the spirit in which they are offered; as it is, the honest fellow will hardly fall to trembling in his tracks should he at any future time again descry the centaur-like form of a mounted wheelman approaching him in the distance.
Later in the forenoon I descend into a canon-like valley where, among a few scattering vineyards and jujube-trees, nestles Ayash, a place which disputes with the neighboring village of Istanos the honor of being the theatre of Alexander the Great's celebrated exploit of cutting the Gordian knot that disentangled the harness of the Phrygian king. Ayash is to be congratulated upon having its historical reminiscence to recommend it to the notice of the outer world, since it has little to attract attention nowadays; it is merely the shapeless jumble of inferior dwellings that characterize the average Turkish village. As I trundle through the crooked, ill-paved alley-way that, out of respect to the historical association referred to, may be called its business thoroughfare, with forethought of the near approach of noon I obtain some pears, and hand an ekmek-jee a coin for some bread; he passes over a tough flat cake, abundantly sufficient for my purpose, together with the change. A zaptieh, looking on, observes that the man has retained a whole half-penny for the bread, and orders him to fork over another cake; I refuse to take it up, whereupon the zaptieh fulfils his ideas of justice by ordering the ekmek-jae to give it to a ragged youth among the spectators.
Continuing on my way I am next halted by a young man of the better class, who, together with the zaptieh, endeavors to prevail upon me to stop, going through the pantomime of writing and reading, to express some idea that our mutual ignorance of each other's language prevents being expressed in words. The result is a rather curious intermezzo. Thinking they want to examine my teskeri merely to gratify their idle curiosity, I refuse to be thus bothered, and, dismissing them quite brusquely, hurry along over the rough cobble-stones in hopes of reaching ridable ground and escaping from the place ere the inevitable "madding crowd" become generally aware of my arrival. The young man disappears, while the zaptieh trots smilingly but determinedly by my side, several times endeavoring to coax me into making a halt; which is, however, promptly interpreted by myself into a paternal plea on behalf of the villagers - a desire to have me stop until they could be generally notified and collected - the very thing I am hurrying along to avoid, I am already clear of the village and trundling up the inevitable acclivity, the zaptieh and a small gathering still doggedly hanging on, when the young man reappears, hurriedly approaching from the rear, followed by half the village. The zaptieh pats me on the shoulder and points back with a triumphant smile; thinking he is referring to the rabble, I am rather inclined to be angry with him and chide him for dogging my footsteps, when I observe the young man waving aloft a letter, and at once understand that I have been guilty of an ungenerous misinterpretation of their determined attentions. The letter is from Mr. Binns, an English gentleman at Angora, engaged in the exportation of mohair, and contains an invitation to become his guest while at Angora. A well-deserved backsheesh to the good-natured zaptieh and a penitential shake of the young man's hand silence the self-accusations of a guilty conscience, and, after riding a short distance down the hill for the satisfaction of the people, I continue on my way, trundling up the varying gradations of a general acclivity for two miles. Away up the road ahead I now observe a number of queer, shapeless objects, moving about on the roadway, apparently descending the hill, and resembling nothing so much as animated clumps of brushwood. Upon a closer approach they turn out to be not so very far removed from this conception; they are a company of poor Ayash peasant-women, each carrying a bundle of camel-thorn shrubs several times larger than herself, which they have been scouring the neighboring hills all morning to obtain for fuel. This camel-thorn is a light, spriggy shrub, so that the size of their burthens is large in proportion to its weight. Instead of being borne on the head, they are carried in a way that forms a complete bushy background, against which the shrouded form of the woman is undistinguishable a few hundred yards away. Instead of keeping a straightforward course, the women seem to be doing an unnecessary amount of erratic wandering about over the road, which, until quite near, gives them the queer appearance of animated clumps of brush dodging about among each other. I ask them whether there is water ahead; they look frightened and hurry along faster, but one brave soul turns partly round and points mutely in the direction I am going. Two miles of good, ridable road now brings me to the spring, which is situated near a two-acre swamp of rank sword-grass and bulrushes six feet high and of almost inpenetrable thickness, which looks decidedly refreshing in its setting of barren, gray hills; and I eat my noon-tide meal of bread and pears to the cheery music of a thousand swamp-frog bands which commence croaking at my approach, and never cease for a moment to twang their tuneful lyre until I depart. The tortuous windings of the chemin de fer finally bring me to a cul-de-sac in the hills, terminating on the summit of a ridge overlooking a broad plain; and a horseman I meet informs me that I am now mid way between Bey Bazaar and Angora. While ascending this ridge I become thoroughly convinced of what has frequently occurred to me between here and Nalikhan - that if the road I am traversing is, as the people keep calling it, a chemin de fer, then the engineer who graded it must have been a youth of tender age, and inexperienced in railway matters, to imagine that trains can ever round his curve or climb his grades. There is something about this broad, artificial highway, and the tremendous amount of labor that has been expended upon it, when compared with the glaring poverty of the country it traverses, together with the wellnigh total absence of wheeled vehicles, that seem to preclude the possibility of its having been made for a wagon-road; and yet, notwithstanding the belief of the natives, it is evident that it can never be the road-bed of a railway. We must inquire about it at Angora.
Descending into the Angora Plain, I enjoy the luxury of a continuous coast for nearly a mile, over a road that is simply perfect for the occasion, after which comes the less desirable performance of ploughing through a stretch of loose sand and gravel. While engaged in this latter occupation I overtake a zaptieh, also en route to Angora, who is letting his horse crawl leisurely along while he concentrates his energies upon a water-melon, evidently the spoils of a recent visitation to a melon-garden somewhere not far off; he hands me a portion of the booty, and then requests me to bin, and keeps on requesting me to bin at regular three- minute intervals for the next half-hour. At the end of that time the loose gravel terminates, and I find myself on a level and reasonably smooth dirt road, making a shorter cut across the plain to Angora than the chin de fer. The zaptieh is, of course, delighted at seeing me thus mount, and not doubting but that I will appreciate his company, gives me to understand that he will ride alongside to Angora. For nearly two miles that sanguine but unsuspecting minion of the Turkish Government spurs his noble steed alongside the bicycle in spite of my determined pedalling to shake him off; but the road improves; faster spins the whirling wheels; the zaptieh begins to lag behind a little, though still spurring his panting horse into keeping reasonably close behind; a bend now occurs in the road, and an intervening knoll hides iis from each other; I put on more steam, and at the same time the zaptieh evidently gives it up and relapses into his normal crawling pace, for when three miles or thereabout arc covered I look back and perceive him leisurely heaving in sight from behind the knoll.
Part way across the plain I arrive at a fountain and make a short halt, for the day is unpleasantly warm, and the dirt-road is covered with dust; the government postaya araba is also halting here to rest and refresh the horses. I have not failed to notice the proneness of Asiatics to base their conclusions entirely on a person's apparel and general outward appearance, for the seeming incongruity of my "Ingilis" helmet and the Circassian moccasins has puzzled them not a little on more than one occasion. And now one wiseacre among this party at the road-side fountain stubbornly asserts that I cannot possibly be an Englishman because of my wearing a mustache without side whiskers-a feature that seems to have impressed upon his enlightened mind the unalterable conviction that I am an "Austrian," why an Austrian any more than a Frenchman or an inhabitant of the moon, I wonder ? and wondering, wonder in vain. Five P.M., August 16,1885, finds me seated on a rude stone slab, one of those ancient tombstones whose serried ranks constitute the suburban scenery of Angora, ruefully disburdening my nether garments of mud and water, the results of a slight miscalculation of my abilities at leaping irrigating ditches with the bicycle for a vaulting-pole. While engaged in this absorbing occupation several inquisitives mysteriously collect from somewhere, as they invariably do whenever I happen to halt for a minute, and following the instructions of the Ayash letter I inquire the way to the "Ingilisin Adam" (Englishman's man). They pilot me through a number of narrow, ill-paved streets leading up the sloping hill which Angora occupies - a situation that gives the supposed ancient capital of Galatia a striking appearance from a distance - and into the premises of an Armenian whom I find able to make himself intelligible in English, if allowed several minutes undisturbed possession of his own faculties of recollection between each word - the gentleman is slow but not quite sure. From him I learn that Mr. Binns and family reside during the summer months at a vineyard five miles out, and that Mr. Binns will not be in town before to-morrow morning; also that, "You are welcome to the humble hospitality of our poor family."
This latter way of expressing it is a revelation to me, and the leaden-heeled and labored utterance, together with the general bearing of my volunteer host, is not less striking; if meekness, lowliness, and humbleness, permeating a person's every look, word, and action, constitute worthiness, then is our Armenian friend beyond a doubt the worthiest of men. Laboring under the impression that he is Mr. Binns' "Ingilisin Adam," I have no hesitation about accepting his proffered hospitality for the night; and storing the bicycle away, I proceed to make myself quite at home, in that easy manner peculiar to one accustomed to constant change. Later in the evening imagine my astonishment at learning that I have thus nonchalantly quartered myself, so to speak, not on Mr. Binns' man, but on an Armenian pastor who has acquired his slight acquaintance with my own language from being connected with the American Mission having headquarters at Kaisarieh. All the evening long, noisy crowds have been besieging the pastorate, worrying the poor man nearly out of his senses on my account; and what makes matters more annoying and lamentable, I learn afterward that his wife has departed this life but a short time ago, and the bereaved pastor is still bowed down with sorrow at the affliction - I feel like kicking myself unceremoniously out of his house. Following the Asiatic custom of welcoming a stranger, and influenced, we may reasonably suppose, as much by their eagerness to satisfy their consuming curiosity as anything else, the people come flocking in swarms to the pastorate again next morning, filling the house and grounds to overflowing, and endeavoring to find out all about me and my unheard - of mode of travelling, by questioning the poor pastor nearly to distraction. That excellent man's thoughts seem to run entirely on missionaries and mission enterprises; so much so, in fact, that several negative assertions from me fail to entirely disabuse his mind of an idea that I am in some way connected with the work of spreading the Gospel in Asia Minor; and coming into the room where I am engaged in the interesting occupation of returning the salaams and inquisitive gaze of fifty ceremonious visitors, in slow, measured words he asks, "Have you any words for these people?" as if quite expecting to see me rise up and solemnly call upon the assembled Mussulmans, Greeks, and Armenians to forsake the religion of the False Prophet in the one case, and mend the error of their ways in the other. I know well enough what they all want, though, and dismiss them in a highly satisfactory manner by promising them that they shall all have an opportunity of seeing the bicycle ridden before I leave Angora.
About ten o'clock Mr. Binns arrives, and is highly amused at the ludicrous mistake that brought me to the Armenian pastor's instead of to his man, with whom he had left instructions concerning me, should I arrive after his departure in the evening for the vineyard; in return he has an amusing story to tell of the people waylaying him on his way to his office, telling him that an Englishman had arrived with a wonderful araba, which he had immediately locked up in a dark room and would allow nobody to look at it, and begging him to ask me if they might come and see it. We spend the remainder of the forenoon looking over the town and the bazaar, Mr. Binus kindly announcing himself as at my service for the day, and seemingly bent on pointing out everything of interest. One of the most curious sights, and one that is peculiar to Angora, owing to its situation on a hill where little or no water is obtainable, is the bewildering swarms of su-katirs (water donkeys) engaged in the transportation of that important necessary up into the city from a stream that flows near the base of the hill. These unhappy animals do nothing from one end of their working lives to the other but toil, with almost machine-like regularity and uneventfulness, up the crooked, stony streets with a dozen large earthen-ware jars of water, and down again with the empty jars. The donkey is sandwiched between two long wooden troughs suspended to a rude pack-saddle, and each trough accommodates six jars, each holding about two gallons of water; one can readily imagine the swarms of these novel and primitive conveyances required to supply a population of thirty- five thousand people. Upon inquiring what they do in case of a fire, I learn that they don't even think of fighting the devouring element with its natural enemy, but, collecting on the adjoining roofs, they smother the flames by pelting the burning building with the soft, crumbly bricks of which Angora is chiefly built; a house on fire, with a swarm of half- naked natives on the neighboring housetops bombarding the leaping flames with bricks, would certainly be an interesting sight.
Other pity-exciting scenes besides the patient little water-carrying donkeys are not likely to be wanting on the streets of an Asiatic city; one case I notice merits particular mention. A youth with both arms amputated at the shoulder, having not so much as the stump of an arm, is riding a donkey, and persuading the unwilling animal along quite briskly - with a stick. All Christendom could never guess how a person thus afflicted could possibly wield a stick so as to make any impression upon a donkey; but this ingenious person holds it quite handily between his chin and right shoulder, and from constant practice has acquired the ability to visit his long-eared steed with quite vigorous thwacks.