Near noon we repair to the government house to pay a visit to Sirra Pasha, the Vali or governor of the vilayet, who, having heard of my arrival, has expressed a wish to have us call on him. We happen to arrive while he is busily engaged with an important legal decision, but upon our being announced he begs us to wait a few minutes, promising to hurry through with the business. We are then requested to enter an adjoining apartment, where we find the Mayor, the Cadi, the Secretary of State, the Chief of the Angora zaptiehs, and several other functionaries, signing documents, affixing seals, and otherwise variously occupied. At our entrance, documents, pens, seals, and everything are relegated to temporary oblivion, coffee and cigarettes are produced, and the journey dunianin -athrafana (around the world) I am making with the wonderful araba becomes the all-absorbing subject. These wise men of state entertain queer, Asiatic notions concerning the probable object of my journey; they cannot bring themselves to believe it possible that I am performing so great a journey "merely as the Outing correspondent;" they think it more probable, they say, that my real incentive is to "spite an enemy" - that, having quarrelled with another wheelman about our comparative skill as riders, I am wheeling entirely around the globe in order to prove my superiority, and at the same time leave no opportunity for my hated rival to perform a greater feat - Asiatic reasoning, sure enough. Reasoning thus, and commenting in this wise among themselves, their curiosity becomes worked up to the highest possible pitch, and they commence plying Mr. Binns with questions concerning the mechanism and general appearance of the bicycle. To facilitate Mr. Binns in his task of elucidation, I produce from my inner coat-pocket a set of the earlier sketches illustrating the tour across America, and for the next few minutes the set of sketches are of more importance than all the State documents in the room. Curiously enough, the sketch entitled "A Fair Young Mormon " attracts more attention than any of the others. The Mayor is Suleiman Effendi, the same gentleman mentioned at some length by Colonel Burnaby in his "On Horseback Through Asia Minor," and one of his first questions is whether I am acquainted with "my friend Burnaby, whose tragic death in the Soudan will never cease to make me feel unhappy." Suleiman Effendi appears to be remarkably intelligent, compared with many Asiatics, and, moreover, of quite a practical turn of mind; he inquires what I should do in case of a serious break-down somewhere in the far interior, and his curiosity to see the bicycle is not a little increased by hearing that, notwithstanding the extreme airiness of my strange vehicle, I have had no serious mishap on the whole journey across two continents. Alluding to the bicycle as the latest product of that Western ingenuity that appears so marvellous to the Asiatic mind, he then remarks, with some animation, "The next thing we shall see will be Englishmen crossing over to India in balloons, and dropping down at Angora for refreshments." A uniformed servant now announces that the Vali is at liberty, and waiting to receive us in private audience. Following the attendant into another room, we find Sirra Pasha seated on a richly cushioned divan, and upon our entrance he rises smilingly to receive us, shaking us both cordially by the hand. As the distinguished visitor of the occasion, I am appointed to the place of honor next to the governor, while Mr. Binns, with whom, of course, as a resident of Angora, His Excellency is already quite well acquainted, graciously fills the office of interpreter, and enlightener of the Vali's understanding concerning bicycles in general, and my own wheel and wheel journey in particular. Sirra Pasha is a full-faced man of medium height, black-eyed, black-haired, and, like nearly all Turkish pashas, is rather inclined to corpulency. Like many prominent Turkish officials, he has discarded the Turkish costume, retaining only the national fez; a head- dress which, by the by, is without one single merit to recommend it save its picturesqueness. In sunny weather it affords no protection to the eyes, and in rainy weather its contour conducts the water in a trickling stream down one's spinal column. It is too thin to protect the scalp from the fierce sun-rays, and too close-fitting and close in texture to afford any ventilation, yet with all this formidable array of disadvantages it is universally worn.
I have learned during the morning that I have to thank Sirra Pasha's energetic administration for the artificial highway from Keshtobek, and that he has constructed in the vilayet no less than two hundred and fifty miles' of this highway, broad and reasonably well made, and actually macadamized in localities where the necessary material is to be obtained. The amount of work done in constructing this road through so mountainous a country is, as before mentioned, plainly out of all proportion to the wealth and population of a second-grade vilayet like Angora, and its accomplishment has been possible only by the employment of forced labor. Every man in the whole vilayet is ordered out to work at the road-making a certain number of days every year, or provide a substitute; thus, during the present summer there have been as many as twenty thousand men, besides donkeys, working on the roads at one time. Unaccustomed to public improvements of this nature, and, no doubt, failing to see their advantages in a country practically without vehicles, the people have sometimes ventured to grumble at the rather arbitrary proceeding of making them work for nothing, and board themselves; and it has been found expedient to make them believe that they were doing the preliminary grading for a railway that was shortly coming to make them all prosperous and happy; beyond being credulous enough to swallow the latter part of the bait, few of them have the least idea of what sort of a looking thing a railroad would be.
When the Vali hears that the people all along the road have been telling me it was a chemin de fer, he fairly shakes in his boots with laughter. Of course I point out that no one can possibly appreciate the road improvements any more than a wheelman, and explain the great difference I have found between the mule-paths of Kodjaili and the broad highways he has made through Angora, and I promise him the universal good opinion of the whole world of 'cyclers. In reply, His Excellency hopes this favorable opinion will not be jeopardized by the journey to Yuzgat, but expresses the fear that I shall find heavier wheeling in that direction, as the road is newly made, and there has been no vehicular traffic to pack it down.
The Governor invites me to remain over until Thursday and witness the ceremony of laying the corner-stone of a new school, of the founding of which he has good reason to feel proud, and which ought to secure him the esteem of right-thinking people everywhere. He has determined it to be a common school in which no question of Mohammedan, Jew, or Christian, will be allowed to enter, but where the young ideas of Turkish, Christian, and Jewish youths shall be taught to shoot peacefully and harmoniously together. Begging to be excused from this, he then invites me to take dinner with him to-morrow evening: but this I also decline, excusing rnyself for having determined to remain over no longer than a day on account of the approaching rainy season and my anxiety to reach Teheran before it sets in. Yet a third time the pasha rallies to the charge, as though determined not to let me off without honoring me in some way; and this time he offers to furnish me a zaptieh escort, but I tell him of the zaptieh's inability to keep up yesterday, at which he is immensely amused. His Excellency then promises to be present at the starting-point to-morrow morning, asking me to name the time and place, after which we finish the cigarettes and coffee and take our leave. We next take a survey of the mohair caravansary, where buyers and sellers and exporters congregate to transact business, and I watch with some interest the corps of half-naked sorters seated before large heaps of mohair, assorting it into the several classes ready for exportation. Here Mr. Binns' office is situated, and we are waited upon by several of his business acquaintances; among them a member of the celebrated - celebrated in Asia Minor - Tif- ticjeeoghlou family, whose ancestors have been prominently engaged in the mohair business for so long that their very name is significatory of their profession - Tifticjee-oghlou, literally, "Mohair-dealer's son." The Smiths, Bakers, and Hunters of Occidental society are not a whit more significative than are many prominent names of the Orient. Prominent among the Angorians is a certain Mr. Altentopoghlou, the literal interpretation of which is, "Son of the golden ball," and the origin of whose family name Eastern tradition has surrounded by the following little interesting anecdote: Ages ago it pleased one of the Sultans to issue a proclamation throughout the empire, promising to present a golden ball to whichever among all his subjects should prove himself the biggest liar, giving it to be understood beforehand that no "merely improbable story" would stand the ghost of a chance of winning, since he himself was to be the judge, and nothing short of a story that was simply impossible would secure the prize. The proclamation naturally made quite a stir among the great prevaricators of the realm, and hundreds of stories came pouring in from competitors everywhere, some even surreptitiously borrowing "whoppers" from the Persians, who are well known as the greatest economizers of the truth in all Asia; but they were one and all adjudged by the astute monarch-who was himself a most experienced prevaricator - probably the noblest Roman of them all - as containing incidents that might under extraordinary circumstances have been true. The coveted golden ball still remained unawarded, when one day there appeared before the gate of the Sultan's palace, requesting an audience, an old man with travel-worn appearance, as though from a long pilgrimage, and bearing on his stooping shoulders an immense earthen-ware jar. The Sultan received the aged pilgrim kindly, and asked him what he could do for him.
"Oh, Sultan, may you live forever!" exclaimed the old man, "for your Imperial Highness is loved and celebrated throughout all the empire for your many virtues, but most of all for your wellknown love of justice."
"Inshallah!" replied the monarch, reverently. "May it please Your Imperial Majesty," continued the old man, calling the monarch's attention to the jar, "Your Highness' most excellent father - may his bones rest in peace! - borrowed from my father this jar full of gold coins, the conditions being that Your Majesty was to pay the same amount back to me." "Absurd, impossible!" exclaimed the astonished Sultan, eying the huge vessel in question.
"If the story be true," gravely continued the pilgrim, "pay your father's debt; if it is as you say, impossible, I have fairly won the golden ball." And the Sultan immediately awarded him the prize.
In the cool of the evening we ride out on horseback through vineyards and yellow-berry gardens to Mr. Binns' country residence, a place that formerly belonged to an old pasha, a veritable Bluebeard, who built the house and placed the windows of his harem, even closely latticed as they always are, in a position that would not command so much as a glimpse of passers-by on the road, hundreds of yards away. He planted trees and gardens, and erected marble fountains at great cost. Surrounding the whole with a wall, and purchasing three beautiful young wives, the old Turk fondly fancied he had created for himself an earthly paradise; but as love laughs at locksmiths, so did these three frisky damea laugh at latticed windows, and lay their heads together against being prevented from watching passers-by through the windows of the harem. With nothing else to do, they would scheme and plot all day long against their misguided husband's tranquillity and peace of mind. One day, while sunning himself in the garden, he discovered that they had managed to detach a section of the lattice-work from a window, and were in the habit of sticking out their heads - awful discovery. Flying into a righteous rage at this act of flagrant disobedience, he seized a thick stick and sought their apartments, only to find the lattice-work skilfully replaced, and to be confronted with a general denial of what he had witnessed with his own eyes. This did not prevent them from all three getting a severe chastisement; but as time wore on he found the life these three caged-up young women managed to lead him anything but the earthly paradise he thought he was creating, and, financial troubles overtaking him at the same time, the old fellow fairly died of a broken heart in less than twelve months after he had so hopefully installed himself in his self-created heaven.
There is a moral in the story somewhere, I think, for anybody caring to analyze it. Mr. Binns says the old Mussulman was also an inveterate hater of unbelievers, and that the old fellow's bones would fairly rattle in his coffin were he conscious that a family of Christians are now actually occupying the house he built with such careful regard for the Mussulman's ideas of a material heaven, with trees and fountains and black-eyed houris.
Near ten o'clock on Tuesday morning finds Angora the scene of more excitement than it has seen for some time. I am trundling through the narrow streets toward the appointed starting-place, which is at the commencement of a half-mile stretch of excellent level macadam, just beyond the tombstone-planted suburbs of the city. Mr. Binns is with me, and a squad of zaptiehs are engaged in the lively occupation of protecting us from the crush of people following us out; they are armed especially for the occasion with long switches, with which they unsparingly lay about them, seemingly only too delighted at the chance of making the dust fly from the shoulders of such unfortunate wights as the pressure of the throng forces anywhere near the magic cause of the commotion. The time and place of starting have been proclaimed by the Vali and have become generally noised abroad, and near three thousand people are already assembled when we arrive; among them is seen the genial face of Suleiman Effendi, who, in his capacity of mayor, is early on the ground with a force of zaptiehs to maintain order; and with a little knot of friends, behold, is also our humble friend the Armenian pastor, the irresistible attractions of the wicked bicycle having temporarily overcome his contempt of the pomps and vanities of secular displays.