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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

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




The custom from here eastward appears to be to have the threshing-floors
in or near the village; there are sometimes several different floors,
and when they are winnowing the grain on windy days the whole village
becomes covered with an inch or two of chaff. I am glad to find these
threshing-floors in the villages, because they give me an excellent
opportunity to ride and satisfy the people, thus saving me no end of
worry and annoyance.

The air becomes chilly after sundown, and I am shown into a close room
containing one small air-hole, and am provided with a quilt and pillow.
Later in the evening a Turkish Bey arrives with an escort of zaptiehs
and occupies the same apartment, which would seem to be a room especially
provided for the accommodation of travellers. The moment the officer
arrives, behold, there is a hurrying to and fro of the villagers to sweep
out the room, kindle a fire to brew his coffee, and to bring him water
and a vessel for his ablutions before saying his evening prayers. Cringing
senility characterizes the demeanor of these Armenian villagers toward
the Turkish officer, and their hurrying hither and thither to supply him
ere they are asked looks to me wonderfully like a "propitiating of the
gods." The Bey himself seems to be a pretty good sort of a fellow,
offering me a portion of his supper, consisting of bread, olives, and
onions; which, however, I decline, having already ordered eggs and pillau
of a villager. The Bey's company is highly acceptable, since it saves
me from the annoyance of being surrounded by the usual ragged, unwashed
crowd during the evening, and secures me a refreshing sleep, undisturbed
by visions of purloined straps or moccasins. He appears to be a very
pious Mussulman; after washing his head, hands, and feet, he kneels
toward Mecca on the wet towel, and prays for nearly twenty minutes by
my timepiece; and his sighs of Allah! are wonderfully deep-fetched,
coming apparently from clear down in his stomach. While he is thus
devotionally engaged, his two zaptiehs stand respectfully by, and divide
their time between eying myself and the bicycle with wonder and the Bey
with mingled reverence and awe. At early dawn I steal noiselessly away,
to avoid disturbing the peaceful slumbers of the Bey. For several miles
my road winds around among the foot-hills of the range I crossed yesterday,
but following a gradually widening depression, which finally terminates
in the Gevmeili Chai Valley; and directly ahead and below me lies the
considerable town of Enderes, surrounded by a broad fringe of apple-orchards,
and walnut and jujube groves. Here I obtain a substantial breakfast of
Turkish kabobs (tid-bits of mutton, spitted on a skewer, and broiled
over a charcoal fire) at a public eating khan, after which the mudir
kindly undertakes to explain to me the best route to Erzingan, giving
me the names of several villages to inquire for as a guidance. While
talking to the mudir, Mr. Pronatti, an Italian engineer in the employ
of the Sivas Vali, makes his appearance, shakes hands, reminds me that
Italy has recently volunteered assistance to England in the Soudan
campaign, and then conducts me to his quarters in another part of the
town. Mr. Pronatti can speak almost any language but English; I speak
next to nothing but English; nevertheless, we manage to converse quite
readily, for, besides proficiency in pantomimic language acquired by
daily practice, I have necessarily picked up a few scattering words of
the vernacular of the several countries traversed on the tour. While
discussing a nice ripe water-melon with this gentleman, several respectable-
looking people enter and introduce themselves through Mr. Pronatti as
Osmanli Turks, not Armenians, expecting me to regard them more favorably
on that account. Soon afterward a party of Armenians arrive, and take
labored pains to impress upon me that they are not Turks, but Christian
Armenians. Both parties seem desirous of winning my favorable opinion.
One party thinks the surest plan is to let me know that they are Turks;
the others, to let me know that they are not Turks. "I have told both
parties to go to Gehenna," says my Italian friend. "These people will
worry you to death with their foolishness if you make the mistake of
treating them with consideration."

Donning an Indian pith-helmet that is three sizes too large, and wellnigh
conceals his features, Mr. Pronatti orders his horse, and accompanies
me some distance out, to put me on the proper course to Erzingan. My
route from Enderes leads along a lovely fertile valley, between lofty
mountain ranges; an intricate network of irrigating ditches, fed by,
mountain streams, affords an abundance of water for
wheat-fields, vineyards, and orchards; it is the best, and yet the worst
watered valley I ever saw - the best, because the irrigating ditches are
so numerous; the worst, because most of them are overflowing and converting
my road into mud-holes and shallow pools. In the afternoon I reach
somewhat higher ground, where the road becomes firmer, and I bowl merrily
along eastward, interrupted by nothing save the necessity of dismounting
and shedding my nether garments every few minutes to ford a broad, swift
feeder to the lesser ditches lower down the valley. In this fructiferous
vale my road sometimes leads through areas of vineyards surrounded by
low mud walls, where grapes can be had for the reaching, and where the
proprietor of an orchard will shake down a shower of delicious yellow
pears for whatever you like to give him, or for nothing if one wants him
to. I suppose these villagers have established prices for their commodities
when dealing with each other, but they almost invariably refuse to charge
me anything; some will absolutely refuse any payment, and my only plan
of recompensing them is to give money to the children; others accept,
with as great a show of gratitude as if I were simply giving it to them
without having received an equivalent, whatever I choose to give.

The numerous irrigating ditches have retarded my progress to an appreciable
extent to-day, so that, notwithstanding the early start and the absence
of mountain-climbing, my cyclometer registers but a gain of thirty-seven
miles, when, having continued my eastward course for some time after
nightfall, and failing to reach a village, I commence looking around for
somewhere to spend the night. The valley of the Gevmeili Chai has been
left behind, and I am again traversing a narrow, rocky pass between the
hills. Among the rocks I discover a small open cave, in which I determine
to spend the night. The region is elevated, and the night air chilly;
so I gather together some dry weeds and rubbish and kindle a fire. With
something to cook and eat, and a pair of blankets, I could have spent a
reasonably comfortable night; but a pocketful of pears has to suffice
for supper, and when the unsubstantial fuel is burned away, my airy
chamber on the bleak mountain-side and the thin cambric tent affords
little protection from the insinuating chilliness of the night air.
Variety is said to be the spice of life; no doubt it is, under certain
conditions, but I think it all depends on the conditions whether it is
spicy or not spicy. For instance, the vicissitudes of fortune that favor
me with bread and sour milk for dinner, a few pears for supper, and a
wakeful night of shivering discomfort in a cave, as the reward of wading
fifty irrigating ditches and traversing thirty miles of ditch-bedevilled
donkey-trails during the day, may look spicy, and even romantic, from a
distance; but when one wakes up in a cold shiver about 1.30A.M. and
realizes that several hours of wretchedness are before him, his waking
thoughts are apt to be anything but thoughts complimentary of the spiciness
of the situation. Inshallah! fortune will favor me with better dues to-
morrow; and if not to-morrow, then the next day, or the next.






CHAPTER XVII.




THROUGH ERZINGAN AND ERZEROUM.

For mile after mile, on the following morning, my route leads through
broad areas strewn with bowlders and masses of rock that appear to have
been brought down from the adjacent mountains by the annual spring floods,
caused by the melting winter's snows; scattering wheat-fields are observed
here and there on the higher patches of ground, which look like small
yellow oases amid the desert-like area of loose rocks surrounding them.
Squads of diminutive donkeys are seen picking their weary way through
the bowlders, toiling from the isolated fields to the village threshing-floors
beneath small mountains of wheat-sheaves. Sometimes the donkeys themselves
are invisible below the general level of the bowlders, and nothing is
to be seen but the head and shoulders of a man, persuading before him
several animated heaps of straw. Small lakes of accumulated surface-water
are passed in depressions having no outlet; thickets and bulrushes are
growing around the edges, and the surfaces of some are fairly black with
multitudes of wild-ducks. Soon I reach an Armenian village; after
satisfying the popular curiosity by riding around their threshing-floor,
they bring me some excellent wheat-bread, thick, oval cakes that are
quite acceptable, compared with the wafer-like sheets of the past several
days, and five boiled eggs. The people providing these will not accept
any direct payment, no doubt thinking my having provided them with the
only real entertainment most of them ever saw, a fair equivalent for
their breakfast; but it seems too much like robbing paupers to accept
anything from these people without returning something, so I give money
to the children. These villagers seem utterly destitute of manners,
standing around and watching my efforts to eat soft-boiled eggs with a
pocket-knife with undisguised merriment. I inquire for a spoon, but they
evidently prefer to extract amusement from watching my interesting
attempts with the pocket-knife. One of them finally fetches a clumsy
wooden ladle, three times broader than an egg, which, of course is worse
than nothing. I now traverse a mountainous country with a remarkably
clear atmosphere. The mountains are of a light creamcolored shaly
composition; wherever a living stream of water is found, there also is
a village, with clusters of trees. From points where a comprehensive
view is obtainable the effect of these dark-green spots, scattered here
and there among the whitish hills, seen through the clear, rarefied
atmosphere, is most beautiful. It seems a peculiar feature of everything
in the East - not only the cities themselves, but even of the landscape -
to look beautiful and enchanting at a distance; but upon a closer approach
all its beauty vanishes like an illusory dream. Spots that from a distance
look, amid their barren, sun-blistered surroundings, like lovely bits
of fairyland, upon closer investigation degenerate into wretched habitations
of a ragged, poverty-stricken people, having about them a few neglected
orchards and vineyards, and a couple of dozen straggling willows and
jujubes.

For many hours again to-day I am traversing mountains, mountains, nothing
but mountains; following tortuous camel-paths far up their giant slopes.
Sometimes these camel-paths are splendidly smooth, and make most excellent
riding. At one place, particularly, where they wind horizontally around
the mountain-side, hundreds of feet above a village immediately below,
it is as though the villagers were in the pit of a vast amphitheatre,
and myself were wheeling around a semicircular platform, five hundred
feet above them, but in plain view of them all. I can hear the wonder-struck
villagers calling each other's attention to the strange apparition, and
can observe them swarming upon the house-tops. What wonderful stories
the inhabitants of this particular village will have to recount to their
neighbors, of this marvellous sight, concerning which their own unaided
minds can give no explanation!

Noontide comes and goes without bringing me any dinner, when I emerge
upon a small, cultivated plateau, and descry a coterie of industrious
females reaping together in a field near by, and straightway turn my
footsteps thitherward with a view of ascertaining whether they happen
to have any eatables. No sooner do they observe me trundling toward them
than they ingloriously flee the field, thoughtlessly leaving bag and
baggage to the tender mercies of a ruthless invader. Among their effects
I find some bread and a cucumber, which I forthwith confiscate, leaving
a two and a half piastre metallique piece in its stead; the affrighted
women are watching me from the safe distance of three hundred yards;
when they return and discover the coin they will wish some 'cycler would
happen along and frighten them away on similar conditions every day.
Later in the afternoon I find myself wandering along the wrong trail;
not a very unnatural occurrence hereabout, for since leaving the valley
of the Gevmeili Chai, it has been difficult to distinguish the Erzingan
trail from the numerous other trails intersecting the country in every
direction. On such a journey as this one seems to acquire a certain
amount of instinct concerning roads; certain it is, that I never traverse
a wrong trail any distance these days ere, without any tangible evidence
whatever, I feel instinctively that I am going astray. A party of camel-
drivers direct me toward the lost Erzingan trail, and in an hour I am
following a tributary of the ancient Lycus River, along a valley where
everything looks marvellously green and refreshing; it is as though I
have been suddenly transferred into an entirely different country.

This innovation from barren rocks and sun-baked shale to a valley where
the principal crops seem to be alfalfa and clover, and which is flanked
on the south by dense forests of pine, encroaching downward from the
mountain slopes clear on to the level greensward, is rather an agreeable
surprise; the secret of the magic change does not remain a secret long;
it reveals itself in the shape of sundry broad snow-patches still lingering
on the summits of a higher mountain range beyond. These pine forests,
the pleasant greensward, and the lingering snow-banks, tell an oft-repeated
tale; they speak eloquently of forests preserved and the winter snow-fall
thereby increased; they speak all the more eloquently because of being
surrounded by barren, parched-up hills which, under like conditions,
might produce similar happy results, but which now produce nothing. While
traversing this smiling valley I meet a man asleep on a buffalo araba;
an irrigating ditch runs parallel with the road and immediately alongside;
the meek-eyed buffaloes swerve into the ditch in deference to their awe
of tho bicycle, arid upset their drowsy driver into the water. The mail
evidently stands in need of a bath, but somehow he doesn't seeiu to
appreciate it; perhaps it happened a trifle too impromptu, as it were,
to suit his easy-going Asiatic temperament. He returns my rude, unsympathetic
smile with a prolonged stare of bewilderment, but says nothing.

Soon I meet a boy riding on a donkey, and ask him the postaya distance
to Erzingan; the youth looks frightened half out of his. senses, but
manages to retain sufficient presence of mind to elevate one finger, by
which I understand him to mean that it is one hour, or about four miles.
Accordingly I pedal perseveringly ahead, hoping to reach the city before
dusk, at the same time feeling rather surprised at finding it so near,
as I haven't been expecting to reach there before to-morrow. Five miles
beyond where I met the boy, and just after sundown, I overtake some
katir-jees en route to Erzingan with donkey-loads of grain, and ask them
the same question. From them I learn that instead of one, it is not less
than twelve hours distant, also that the trail leads over a fearfully
mountainous country. Nestling at the base of the mountains, a short
distance to the northward, is the large village of Merriserriff, and not
caring to tempt the fates into giving me another supper-less night in a
cold, cheerless cave, I wend my way thither.

Fortune throws me into the society of an Armenian whose chief anxiety
seems to be, first, that I shall thoroughly understand that he is an
Armenian, and not a Mussulman; and, secondly, to hasten me into the
presence of the mudir, who is a Mussulman, and a Turkish Bey, in order
that he may bring himself into the mudir's favorable notice by personally
introducing me as a rare novelty on to his (the mudir's) threshing-floor.
The official and a few friends are sipping coffee in one corner of the
threshing floor, and, although I don't much relish my position of the
Armenian's puppet-show, I give the mudir an exhibition of the bicycle's
use, in the expectation that he will invite me to remain his guest over
night.

He proves uncourteous, however, not even inviting me to partake of coffee;
evidently, he has become so thoroughly accustomed to the abject servility
of the Armenians about him - who would never think of expecting reciprocating
courtesies from a social superior - that he has unconsciously come to
regard everybody else, save those whom he knows as his official superiors,
as tarred, more or less, with the same feather. In consequence of this
belief I am not a little gratified when, upon the point of leaving the
threshing-floor, an occasion offers of teaching him different.

Other friends of the mudir's appear upon the scene just as I am leaving,
and he beckons me to come back and bin for the enlightenment of the new
arrivals. The Armenian's countenance fairly beams with importance at
thus being, as it were, encored, and the collected villagers murmur their
approval; but I answer the mudir's beckoned invitation by a negative
wave of the hand, signifying that I can't bother with him any further.
The common herd around regard this self-assertive reply with open-mouthed
astonishment, as though quite too incredible for belief; it seems to
them an act of almost criminal discourtesy, and those immediately about
me seem almost inclined to take me back to the threshing-floor like a
culprit. But the mudir himself is not such a blockhead but that he
realizes the mistake he has made. He is too proud to acknowledge it,
though; consequently his friends miss, perhaps, the only opportunity in
their uneventful lives of seeing a bicycle ridden. Owing to my ignorance
of the vernacular, I am compelled to drift more or less with the tide
of circumstances about me, upon entering one of these villages, for
accommodation, and make the best of whatever capricious chance provides.
My Armenian "manager " now delivers me into the hands of one of his
compatriots, from whom I obtain supper and a quilt, sleeping, from a not
over extensive choice, on some straw, beneath the broad eaves of a log
granary adjoining the house.

I am for once quite mistaken in making an early, breakfastless start,
for it proves to be eighteen weary miles over a rocky mountain pass
before another human habitation is reached, a region of jagged rocks,
deep gorges, and scattered pines. Fortunately, however, I am not destined
to travel the whole eighteen miles in a breakfastless condition-not quite
a breakfastless condition. Perhaps half the distance is traversed, when,
while trundling up the ascent, I meet a party of horsemen, a turbaned
old Turk, with an escort of three zaptiehs, and another traveller, who
is keeping pace with them for company and safety. The old Turk asks me
to bin bacalem, supplementing the request by calling my attention to his
turban, a gorgeously spangled affair that would seem to indicate the
wearer to be a personage of some importance; I observe, also that the
butt of his revolver is of pearl inlaid with gold, another indication
of either rank or opulence. Having turned about and granted his request,
I in turn call his attention to the fact that mountain climbing on an
empty stomach is anything but satisfactory or agreeable, and give him a
broad hint by inquiring how far it is before ekmek is obtainable. For
reply, he orders a zaptieh to produce a wheaten cake from his saddle-bags,
and the other traveller voluntarily contributes three apples, which he
ferrets out from the ample folds of his kammerbund and off this I make
a breakfast. Toward noon, the highest elevation of the pass is reached,
and I commence the descent toward the Erzingan Valley, following for a
number of miles the course of a tributary of the western fork of the
Euphrates, known among the natives in a general sense as the "Frat;"
this particular branch is locally termed the Kara Su, or black water.
The stream and my road lead down a rocky defile between towering hills
of rock and slaty formation, whose precipitous slopes vegetable nature
seems to shun, and everything looks black and desolate, as though some
blighting curse had fallen upon the place. Up this same rocky passage-way,
eight summers ago, swarmed thousands of wretched refugees from the seat
of war in Eastern Armenia; small oblong mounds of loose rocks and bowlders
are frequently observed all down the ravine, mournful reminders of one
of the most heartrending phases of the Armenian campaign; green lizards
are scuttling about among the rude graves, making their habitations in
the oblong mounds. About two o'clock I arrive at a road-side khan, where
an ancient Osmanli dispenses feeds of grain for travellers' animals, and
brews coffee for the travellers themselves, besides furnishing them with
whatever he happens to possess in the way of eatables to such as are
unfortunately obliged to patronize his cuisine or go without anything;
among this latter class belongs, unhappily, my hungry self. Upon inquiring
for refreshments the khan-jee conducts me to a rear apartment and exhibits
for my inspection the contents of two jars, one containing the native
idea of butter and the other the native conception of a soft variety of
cheese; what difference is discoverable between these two kindred products
is chiefly a difference in the degree
of rancidity and odoriferousuess, in which respect the cheese plainly
carries off the honors; in fact these venerable and esteemable qualities
of the cheese are so remarkably developed that after one cautious peep
into its receptacle I forbear to investigate their comparative excellencies
any further; but obtaining some bread and a portion of the comparatively
mild and inoffensive butter, I proceed to make the best of circumstances.
The old khan-jee proves himself a thoughtful, considerate landlord, for
as I eat he busies himself picking the most glaringly conspicuous hairs
out of my butter with the point of his dagger. One is usually somewhat
squeamish regarding hirsute butter, but all such little refinements of
civilized life as hairless butter or strained milk have to be winked at
to a greater or less extent in Asiatic travelling, especially when
depending solely on what happens to turn up from one meal to another.
The narrow, lonely defile continues for some miles eastward from the
khan, and ere I emerge from it altogether I encounter a couple of ill-
starred natives, who venture upon an effort to intimidate me into yielding
up my purse. A certain Mahmoud Ali and his band of enterprising freebooters
have been terrorizing the villagers and committing highway robberies of
late around the country; but from the general appearance of these two,
as they approach, I take them to be merely villagers returning home from
Erzingan afoot. They are armed with Circassian guardless swords and
flint-lock horse-pistols; upon meeting they address some question to me
in Turkish, to which I make my customary reply of Tarkchi binmus; one
of them then demands para (money) in a manner that leaves something of
a doubt whether he means it for begging, or is ordering me to deliver.
In order to the better discover their intentions, I pretend not to
understand, whereupon the spokesman reveals their meaning plain enough
by reiterating the demand in a tone meant to be intimidating, and half
unsheatns his sword in a significant manner. Intuitively the precise
situation of affairs seems to reveal itself in a moment; they are but
ordinarily inoffensive villagers returning from Erzingan, where they
have sold and squandered even the donkeys they rode to town; meeting me
alone, and, as they think in the absence of outward evidence that I am
unarmed, they have become possessed ot tue idea of retrieving their
fortunes by intimidating me out of money. Never were men more astonished
and taken aback at finding me armed, and they both turn pale and fairly
shiver with fright as I produce the Smith & Wesson from its inconspicuous
position at my hip, and hold it on a level with the bold spokesman's
head; they both look as if they expected their last hour had arrived and
both seem incapable either of utterance or of running away; in fact,
their embarrassment is so ridiculous that it provokes a smile and it is
with anything but a threatening or angry voice that I bid them haidy.
The bold highwaymen seem only too thankful of a chance to "haidy," and
they look quite confused, and I fancy even ashamed of themselves, as
they betake themselves off up the ravine. I am quite as thankful as
themselves at getting off without the necessity of using my revolver,
for had I killed or badly wounded one of them it would probably have
caused no end of trouble or vexatious delay, especially in case they
prove to be what I take them for, instead of professional robbers;
moreover, I might not have gotten off unscathed myself, for while their
ancient flint-locks were in all probability not even loaded, being worn
more for appearances by the native than anything else, these fellows
sometimes do desperate work with their ugly and ever-handy swords when
cornered up, in proof of which we have the late dastardly assault on the
British Consul at Erzeroum, of which we shall doubtless hear the particulars
upon reaching that city. Before long the ravine terminates, and I emerge
upon the broad and smiling Erzingan Valley; at the lower extremity of
the ravine the stream has cut its channel through an immense depth of
conglomerate formation, a hundred feet of bowlders and pebbles cemented
together by integrant particles which appear to have been washed down
from the mountains-probably during the subsidence of the deluge, for
even if that great catastrophe were a comparatively local occurrence,
instead of a universal flood, as some profess to believe, we are now
gradually creeping up toward Ararat, so that this particular region was
undoubtedly submerged. What appear to be petrified chunks of wood are
interspersed through the mass. There is nothing new under the sun, they
say; peradventure they may be sticks of cooking-stove wood indignantly
cast out of the kitchen window of the ark by Mrs. Noah, because the
absent-minded patriarch habitually persisted in cutting them three inches
too long for the stove; who knows. I now wheel along a smooth, level
road leading through several orchard-environed villages; general cultivation
and an atmosphere of peace and plenty seems to pervade the valley, which,
with its scattering villages amid the foliage of their orchards, looks
most charming upon emerging from the gloomy environments of the rock-ribbed
and verdureless ravine; a fitting background is presented on the south
by a mountain-chain of considerable elevation, upon the highest peaks
of which still linger tardy patches of snow.

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