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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

T >> Thomas Stevens >> Around the World on a Bicycle V1




My route to-day is a continuation of the abandoned macadam road, the
weed-covered stones of which I have frequently found acceptable in tiding
me over places where the ordinary dirt road was deep with mud. In spite
of its long-neglected condition, occasional ridable stretches are
encountered, but every bridge and culvert has been destroyed, and an
honest shepherd, not far from Hafsa, who from a neighboring knoll observes
me wheeling down a long declivity toward one of these uncovered waterways,
nearly shouts himself hoarse, and gesticulates most frantically in an
effort to attract my attention to the danger ahead. Soon after this I
am the innocent cause of two small pack-mules, heavily laden with
merchandise, attempting to bolt from their driver, who is walking behind.
One of them actually succeeds in escaping, and, although his pack is too
heavy to admit of running at any speed, he goes awkwardly jogging across
the rolling plains, as though uncertain in his own mind of whether he
is acting sensibly or not; but his companion in pack-slavery is less
fortunate, since he tumbles into a gully, bringing up flat on his broad
and top-heavy pack with his legs frantically pawing the air. Stopping
to assist the driver in getting the collapsed mule on his feet again,
this individual demands damages for the accident; so I judge, at least,
from the frequency of the word "medjedie," as he angrily, yet ruefully,
points to the mud-begrimed pack and unhappy, yet withal laughter-provoking,
attitude of the mule; but I utterly fail to see any reasonable connection
between the uncalled-for scariness of his mules and the contents of my
pocket-book, especially since I was riding along the Sultan's ancient
and deserted macadam, while he and his mules were patronizing a separate
and distinct dirt-road alongside. As he seems far more concerned about
obtaining a money satisfaction from me than the rescue of the mule from
his topsy-turvy position, I feel perfectly justified, after several times
indicating my willingness to assist him, in leaving him and proceeding
on my way.

The Adrianople plains are a dreary expanse of undulating grazing-land,
traversed by small sloughs and their adjacent cultivated areas. Along
this route it is without trees, and the villages one comes to at intervals
of eight or ten miles are shapeless clusters of mud, straw-thatched huts,
out of the midst of which, perchance, rises the tapering minaret of a
small mosque, this minaret being, of course, the first indication of a
village in the distance. Between Adrianople and Eski Baba, the town I
reach for the night, are three villages, in one of which I approach a
Turkish private house for a drink of water, and surprise the women with
faces unveiled. Upon seeing my countenance peering in the doorway they
one and all give utterance to little screams of dismay, and dart like
frightened fawns into an adjoining room. When the men appear, to see
what is up, they show no signs of resentment at my abrupt intrusion, but
one of them follows the women into the room, and loud, angry words seem
to indicate that they are being soundly berated for allowing themselves
to be thus caught. This does not prevent the women from reappearing the
next minute, however, with their faces veiled behind the orthodox yashmak,
and through its one permissible opening satisfying their feminine curiosity
by critically surveying me and my strange vehicle. Four men follow me
on horseback out of this village, presumably to see what use I make of
the machine; at least I cannot otherwise account for the honor of their
unpleasantly close attentions - close, inasmuch as they keep their horses'
noses almost against my back, in spite of sundry subterfuges to shake
them off. When I stop they do likewise, and when I start again they
deliberately follow, altogether too near to be comfortable. They are,
all four, rough-looking peasants, and their object is quite unaccountable,
unless they are doing it for "pure cussedness," or perhaps with some
vague idea of provoking me into doing something that would offer them
the excuse of attacking and robbing me. The road is sufficiently lonely
to invite some such attention. If they are only following me to see what
I do with the bicycle, they return but little enlightened, since they
see nothing but trundling and an occasional scraping off of mud. At the
end of about two miles, whatever their object, they give it up. Several
showers occur during the afternoon, and the distance travelled has been
short and unsatisfactory, when just before dark I arrive at Eski Baba,
where I am agreeably surprised to find a mehana, the proprietor of which
is a reasonably mannered individual. Since getting into Turkey proper,
reasonably mannered people have seemed wonderfully scarce, the majority
seeming to be most boisterous and headstrong. Next to the bicycle the
Turks of these interior villages seem to exercise their minds the most
concerning whether I have a passport; as I enter Eski Baba; a gendarme
standing at the police-barrack gates shouts after me to halt and produce
"passaporte." Exhibiting my passport at almost every village is getting
monotonous, and, as I am going to remain here at least overnight, I
ignore the gendarme's challenge and wheel on to the mehana. Two gendarmes
are soon on the spot, inquiring if I have a "passaporte;" but, upon
learning that I am going no farther to-day, they do not take the trouble
to examine it, the average Turkish official religiously believing in
never doing anything to-day that can be put off till to-morrow.

The natives of a Turkish interior village are not over-intimate with
newspapers, and are in consequence profoundly ignorant, having little
conception of anything, save what they have been familiar with and
surrounded by all their lives, and the appearance of the bicycle is
indeed a strange visitation, something entirely beyond their comprehension.
The mehana is crowded by a wildly gesticulating and loudly commenting
and arguing crowd of Turks and Christians all the evening. Although there
seems to be quite a large proportion of native unbelievers in Eski Baba
there is not a single female visible on the streets this evening; and
from observations next day I judge it to be a conservative Mussulman
village, where the Turkish women, besides keeping themselves veiled with
orthodox strictness, seldom go abroad, and the women who are not Mohammedan,
imbibing something of the retiring spirit of the dominant race, also
keep themselves well in the background. A round score of dogs, great and
small, and in all possible conditions of miserableness, congregate in
the main street of Eski Baba at eventide, waiting with hungry-eyed
expectancy for any morsel of food or offal that may peradventure find
its way within their reach. The Turks, to their credit be it said, never
abuse dogs; but every male "Christian" in Eski Baba seems to consider
himself in duty bound to kick or throw a stone at one, and scarcely a
minute passes during the whole evening without the yelp of some unfortunate
cur. These people seem to enjoy a dog's sufferings; and one soulless
peasant, who in the course of the evening kicks a half-starved cur so
savagely that the poor animal goes into a fit, and, after staggering and
rolling all over the street, falls down as though really dead, is the
hero of admiring comments from the crowd, who watch the creature's
sufferings with delight. Seeing who can get the most telling kicks at
the dogs seems to be the regular evening's pastime among the male
population of Eski Baba unbelievers, and everybody seems interested and
delighted when some unfortunate animal comes in for an unusually severe
visitation. A rush mat on the floor of the stable is my bed to-night,
with a dozen unlikely looking natives, to avoid the close companionship
of whom I take up my position in dangerous proximity to a donkey's hind
legs, and not six feet from where the same animal's progeny is stretched
out with all the abandon of extreme youth. Precious little sleep is
obtained, for fleas innumerable take liberties with my person. A flourishing
colony of swallows inhabiting the roof keeps up an incessant twittering,
and toward daylight two muezzins, one on the minaret of each of the two
mosques near by, begin calling the faithful to prayer, and howling "Allah.
Allah!" with the voices of men bent on conscientiously doing their
duty by making themselves heard by every Mussulman for at least a mile
around, robbing me of even the short hour of repose that usually follows
a sleepless night.

It is raining heavily again on Sunday morning - in fact, the last week has
been about the rainiest that I ever saw outside of England - and considering
the state of the roads south of Eski Baba, the prospects look favorable
for a Sunday's experience in an interior Turkish village. Men are solemnly
squatting around the benches of the mehana, smoking nargilehs and sipping
tiny cups of thick black coffee, and they look on in wonder while I
devour a substantial breakfast; but whether it is the novelty of seeing
a 'cycler feed, or the novelty of seeing anybody eat as I am doing, thus
early in the morning, I am unable to say; for no one else seems to partake
of much solid food until about noontide. All the morning long, people
swarming around are importuning me with, " Bin, bin, bin, monsieur."
The bicycle is locked up in a rear chamber, and thrice I accommodatingly
fetch it out and endeavor to appease their curiosity by riding along a
hundred-yard stretch of smooth road in the rear of the mehana; but their
importunities never for a moment cease. Finally the annoyance becomes
so unbearable that the proprietor takes pity on my harassed head, and,
after talking quite angrily to the crowd, locks me up in the same room
with the bicycle. Iron bars guard the rear windows of the houses at Eski
Baba, and ere I am fairly stretched out on my mat several swarthy faces
appear at the bars, and several voices simultaneously join in the dread
chorus of, " Bin, bin, bin, monsieur! bin, bin." compelling me to close,
in the middle of a hot day-the rain having ceased about ten o'clock-the
one small avenue of ventilation in the stuffy little room. A moment's
privacy is entirely out of the question, for, even with the window closed,
faces are constantly peering in, eager to catch even the smallest glimpse
of either me or the bicycle. Fate is also against me to-day, plainly
enough, for ere I have been imprisoned in the room an hour the door is
unlocked to admit the mulazim (lieutenant of gendarmes), and two of his
subordinates, with long cavalry swords dangling about their legs, after
the manner of the Turkish police.

In addition to puzzling their sluggish brains about my passport, my
strange means of locomotion, and my affairs generally, they have now,
it seems, exercised their minds up to the point that they ought to
interfere in the matter of my revolver. But first of all they want to
see my wonderful performance of riding a thing that cannot stand alone.
After I have favored the gendarmes and the assembled crowd by riding
once again, they return the compliment by tenderly escorting me down to
police headquarters, where, after spending an hour or so in examining
my passport, they place that document and my revolver in their strong
box, and lackadaisically wave me adieu. Upon returning to the mehana, I
find a corpulent pasha and a number of particularly influential Turks
awaiting my reappearance, with the same diabolical object of asking me
to "bin! bin!" Soon afterward come the two Mohammedan priests, with the
same request; and certainly not less than half a dozen times during the
afternoon do I bring out the bicycle and ride, in deference to the
insatiable curiosity of the sure enough "unspeakable" Turk; and every
separate time my audience consists not only of the people personally
making the request, but of the whole gesticulating male population. The
proprietor of the mehana kindly takes upon himself the office of apprising
me when my visitors are people of importance, by going through the
pantomime of swelling his features and form up to a size corresponding
in proportion relative to their importance, the process of inflation in
the case of the pasha being quite a wonderful performance for a man who
is not a professional contortionist.

Once during the afternoon I attempt to write, but I might as well attempt
to fly, for the mehana is crowded with people who plainly have not the
slightest conception of the proprieties. Finally a fez is wantonly flung,
by an extra-enterprising youth, at my ink-bottle, knocking it over, and
but for its being a handy contrivance, out of which the ink will not
spill, it would have made a mess of my notes. Seeing the uselessness of
trying to write, I meander forth, and into the leading mosque, and without
removing my shoes, tread its sacred floor for several minutes, and stand
listening to several devout Mussulmans reciting the Koran aloud, for,
be it known, the great fast of Ramadan has begun, and fasting and prayer
is now the faithful Mussulman's daily lot for thirty days, his religion
forbidding him either eating or drinking from early morn till close -
of day. After looking about the interior, I ascend the steep spiral
stairway up to the minaret balcony whence the muezzin calls the faithful
to prayer five times a day. As I pop my head out through the little
opening leading to the balcony, I am slightly taken aback by finding
that small footway already occupied by the muezzin, and it is a fair
question as to whether the muezzin's astonishment at seeing my white
helmet appear through the opening is greater, or mine at finding him
already in possession. However, I brazen it out by joining him, and he,
like a sensible man, goes about his business just the same as if nobody
were about. The people down in the streets look curiously up and call
one another's attention to the unaccustomed sight of a white-helmeted
'cycler and a muezzin upon the minaret together; but the fact that I am
not interfered with in any way goes far to prove that the Mussulman
fanaticism, that we have all heard and read about so often, has wellnigh
flickered out in European Turkey; moreover, I think the Eski Babans
would allow me to do anything, in order to place me under obligations to
"bin! bin!" whenever they ask me. At nine o'clock I begin to grow a trifle
uneasy about the fate of my passport and revolver, and, proceeding to
the police-barracks, formally demand their return. Nothing has apparently
been done concerning either one or the other since they were taken from
me, for the mulazim, who is lounging on a divan smoking cigarettes,
produces them from the same receptacle he consigned them to this
afternoon, and lays them before him, clearly as mystified and perplexed
as ever about what he ought to do. I explain to him that I wish to depart
in the morning, and gendarmes are despatched to summon several leading
Eski Babans for consultation, in the hope that some of them, or all of them
put together, might perchance arrive at a satisfactory conclusion
concerning me. The great trouble appears to be that, while I got the
passport vised at Sofia and Philippopolis, I overlooked Adrianople, and
the Eski Baba officials, being in the vilayet of the latter city, are
naturally puzzled to account for this omission; and, from what I can
gather of their conversation, some are advocating sending me back to
Adrianople, a suggestion that I straightway announce my disapproval of
by again and again calling their attention to the vise of the Turkish
consul-general in London, and giving them to understand, with much
emphasis, that this vise answers, for every part of Turkey, including
the vilayet of Adrianople. The question then arises as to whether that
has anything to do with my carrying a revolver; to which I candidly reply
that it has not, at the same time pointing out that I have just come
through Servia and Bulgaria (countries in which the Turks consider it
quite necessary to go armed, though in fact there is quite as much, if
not more, necessity for arms in Turkey), and that I have come through
both Mustapha Pasha and Adrianople without being molested on account of
the revolver; all of which only seems to mystify them the more, and make
them more puzzled than ever about what to do. Finally a brilliant idea
occurs to one of them, being nothing less than to shift the weight ot
the dreadful responsibility upon the authoritative shoulders of a visiting
pasha, an important personage who arrived in Eski Baba by carriage about
two hours ago, and whose arrival I remember caused quite a flurry of
excitement among the natives. The pasha is found surrounded by a number
of bearded Turks, seated cross-legged on a carpet in the open air, smoking
nargilehs and cigarettes, and sipping coffee. This pasha is fatter and
more unwieldy, if possible, than the one for whose edification I rode
the bicycle this afternoon; noticing which, all hopes of being created
a pasha upon my arrival at Constantinople naturally vanish, for evidently
one of the chief qualifications for a pashalic is obesity, a distinction
to which continuous 'cycling, in hot weather is hardly conducive. The
pasha seems a good-natured person, after the manner of fat people
generally, and straightway bids me be seated on the carpet, and orders
coffee and cigarettes to be placed at my disposal while he examines my
case. In imitation of those around me I make an effort to sit cross-legged
on the mat; but the position is so uncomfortable that I am quickly
compelled to change it, and I fancy detecting a merry twinkle in the eye
of more than one silent observer at my inability to adapt my posture to
the custom of the country. I scarcely think the pasha knows anything
more about what sort of a looking document an English passport ought to
be, than does the mulazim and the leading citizens of Eski Baba; but he
goes through the farce of critically examining the vise of the Turkish
consul-general in London, while another Turk holds his lighted cigarette
close to it, and blows from it a feeble glimmer of light. Plainly the
pasha cannot make anything more out of it than the others, for many a
Turkish pasha is unable to sign his own name intelligibly, using a seal
instead; but, probably with a view of favorably impressing those around
him, he asks me first if I am an Englishman, and then if I am "a baron,"
doubtless thinking that an English baron is a person occupying a somewhat
similar position in English society to that of a pasha in Turkish: viz.,
a really despotic sway over the people of his district; for, although
there are law and lawyers in Turkey to-day, the pasha, especially in
country districts, is still an all-powerful person, practically doing
as he pleases.

To the first question I return an affirmative answer; the latter I pretend
not to comprehend; but I cannot help smiling at the question and the
manner in which it is put - seeing which the pasha and his friends smile
in response, and look knowingly at each other, as though thinking, " Ah!
he is a baron, but don't intend to let us know it." Whether this self-
arrived decision influences things in my favor I hardly know, but anyhow
he tosses me my passport, and orders the mulazim to return my revolver;
and as I mentally remark the rather jolly expression of the pasha's face,
I am inclined to think that, instead of treating the matter with the
ridiculous importance attached to it by the mulazim and the other people,
he regards the whole affair in the light of a few minutes' acceptable
diversion. The pasha arrived too late this evening at Eski Baba to see
the bicycle: "Will I allow a gendarme to go to the mehana and bring it
for his inspection?" "I will go and fetch it myself," I explain; and in
ten minutes the fat pasha and his friends are examining the perfect
mechanism of an American bicycle by the light of an American kerosene
lamp, which has been provided in the meantime. Some of the on-lookers,
who have seen me ride to-day, suggested to the pasha that I "bin! bin!"
and the pasha smiles approvingly at the suggestion; but by pantomime I
explain to him the impossibility of riding, owing to the nature of the
ground and the darkness, and I am really quite surprised at the readiness
with which he comprehends and accepts the situation. The pasha is very
likely possessed of more intelligence than I have been giving him credit
for; anyhow he has in ten minutes proved himself equal to the situation,
which the mulazim and several prominent Eski Babans have puzzled their
collective brains over for an hour in vain, and, after he has inspected
the bicycle, and resumed his cross-legged position on the carpet, I doff
my helmet to him and those about him, and return to the mehana, well
satisfied with the turn affairs have taken.






CHAPTER IX.




THROUGH EUROPEAN TURKEY.

ON Monday morning I am again awakened by the muezzin calling the Mussulmans
to their early morning devotions, and, arising from my mat at five
o'clock, I mount and speed away southward from Eski Baba, Not less than
a hundred people have collected to see the wonderful performance again.

All pretence of road-making seems to have been abandoned; or, what is
more probable, has never been seriously attempted, the visible roadways
from village to village being mere ox-wagon and pack-donkey tracks,
crossing the wheat-fields and uncultivated tracts in any direction. The
soil is a loose, black loam, which the rain converts into mud, through
which I have to trundle, wooden scraper in hand; and I not infrequently
have to carry the bicycle through the worst places. The morning is sultry,
requiring good roads and a breeze-creating pace for agreeable going.
Harvesting and threshing are going forward briskly, but the busy hum of
the self-binder and the threshing-machine is not heard; the reaping is
done with rude hooks, and the threshing by dragging round and round,
with horses or oxen, sleigh-runner shaped, broad boards, roughed with
flints or iron points, making the surface resemble a huge rasp. Large
gangs of rough-looking Armenians, Arabs, and Africans are harvesting the
broad acres of land-owning pashas, the gangs sometimes counting not less
than fifty men. Several donkeys are always observed picketed near them,
taken, wherever they go, for the purpose of carrying provisions and
water. Whenever I happen anywhere near one of these gangs they all come
charging across the field, reaping-hooks in hand, racing with each other
and good-naturedly howling defiance to competitors. A band of Zulus
charging down on a fellow, and brandishing their assegais, could scarcely
present a more ferocious front. Many of them wear no covering of any
kind on the upper part of the body, no hat, no foot-gear, nothing but a
pair of loose, baggy trousers, while the tidiest man among them would
be immediately arrested on general principles in either England or
America. Rough though they are, they appear, for the most part, to be
good-natured fellows, and although they sometimes emphasize their
importunities of "bin! bin!" by flourishing their reaping-hooks
threateningly over my head, and one gang actually confiscates the bicycle,
which they lay up on a shock of wheat, and with much flourishing of
reaping-hooks as they return to their labors, warn me not to take it
away, these are simply good-natured pranks, such as large gangs of
laborers are wont to occasionally indulge in the world over.

Streams have to be forded to-day for the first time in Europe, several
small creeks during the afternoon; and near sundown I find my pathway
into a village where I propose stopping for the night, obstructed by a
creek swollen bank-full by a heavy thunder-shower in the hills. A couple
of lads on the opposite bank volunteer much information concerning the
depth of the creek at different points; no doubt their evident mystification
at not being understood is equalled only by the amazement at my answers.
Four peasants come down to the creek, and one of them kindly wades in
and shows that it is only waist deep. Without more ado I ford it, with
the bicycle on my shoulder, and straight-way seek the accommodation of
the village mehana. This village is a miserable little cluster of mud
hovels, and the best the mehana affords is the coarsest of black-bread
and a small salted fish, about the size of a sardine, which the natives
devour without any pretence of cooking, but which are worse than nothing
for me, since the farther they are away the better I am suited. Sticking
a flat loaf of black-bread and a dozen of these tiny shapes of salted
nothing in his broad waistband, the Turkish peasant sallies forth
contentedly to toil.

I have accomplished the wonderful distance of forty kilometres to-day,
at which I am really quite surprised, considering everything. The usual
daily weather programme has been faithfully carried out - a heavy mist at
morning, that has prevented any drying up of roads during the night,
three hours of oppressive heat - from nine till twelve - during which myraids
of ravenous flies squabble for the honor of drawing your blood, and then,
when the mud begins to dry out sufficient to justify my dispensing with
the wooden scraper, thunder-showers begin to bestow their unappreciated
favor upon the roads, making them well-nigh impassable again. The following
morning the climax of vexation is reached when, after wading through the
mud for two hours, I discover that I have been dragging, carrying, and
trundling my laborious way along in the wrong direction for Tchorlu,
which is not over thirty-five kilometres from my starting-point, but it
takes me till four o'clock to reach there. A hundred miles on French or
English roads would not be so fatiguing, and I wisely take advantage of
being in a town where comparatively decent accommodations are obtainable
to make up, so far as possible, for this morning's breakfast of black
bread and coffee, and my noontide meal of cold, cheerless reflections
on the same. The same programme of "bin! bin." from importuning crowds,
and police inquisitiveness concerning my "passporte" are endured and
survived; but I spread myself upon rny mat to-night thoroughly convinced
that a month's cycling among the Turks would worry most people into
premature graves.

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