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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

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




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.

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.

"Englishmen are always punctual!" says Suleiman Effendi, looking at his
watch; and, upon consulting our own, sure enough we have happened to
arrive precisely to the minute. An individual named Mustapha, a blacksmith
who has acquired an enviable reputation for skill on account of the
beautiful horseshoes he turns out, now presents himself and begs leave
to examine the mechanism of the bicycle, and the question arises among
the officers standing by as to whether Mustapha would be able to make
one; Mustapha himself thinks he could, providing he had mine always at
hand to copy from.

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