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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

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




Repairing to the English consulate, I am gratified at finding several
letters awaiting me, and furthermore by the cordial hospitality extended
by Yusuph Effendi, an Assyrian gentleman, the charg'e d'affaires of the
consulate for the time being, Colonel E--, the consul, having left
recently for Trebizond and England, in consequence of numerous sword-wounds
received at the hands of a desperado who invaded the consulate for plunder
at midnight. The Colonel was a general favorite in Erzeroum, and is being
tenderly carried (Thursday, September 3, 1885) to Trebizond on a stretcher
by relays of willing natives, no less than forty accompanying him on the
road. Yusuph Effendi tells me the story of the whole lamentable affair,
pausing at intervals to heap imprecations on the head of the malefactor,
and to bestow eulogies on the wounded consul's character.

It seems that the door-keeper of the consulate, a native of a neighboring
Armenian village, was awakened at midnight by an acquaintance from the
same village, who begged to be allowed to share his quarters till morning.
No sooner had the servant admitted him to his room than he attacked him
with his sword, intending-as it afterward leaked out-to murder the whole
family, rob the house, and escape. The servant's cries for assistance
awakened Colonel E--, who came to his rescue without taking the trouble
to provide himself with a weapon. The man, infuriated at the detection
and the prospect of being captured and brought to justice, turned savagely
on the consul, inflicting several severe wounds on the head, hands, and
face. The consul closed with him and threw him down, and called for his
wife to bring his revolver. The wretch now begged so piteously for his
life, and made such specious promises, that the consul magnanimously let
him up, neglecting-doubtless owing to his own dazed condition from the
scalp wounds-to disarm him. Immediately he found himself released he
commenced the attack again, cutting and slashing like a demon, knocking
the revolver from the consul's already badly wounded hand while he yet
hesitated to pull the trigger and take his treacherous assailant's life.
The revolver went off as it struck the floor and wounded the consul
himself in the leg-broke it. The servant now rallied sufficiently to
come to his assistance, and together they succeeded in disarming the
robber, who, however, escaped and bolted up-stairs, followed by the
servant with the sword. The consul's wife, with praiseworthy presence
of mind, now appeared with a second revolver, which her husband grasped
in his left hand, the right being almost hacked to pieces. Dazed and
faint with the loss of blood, and, moreover, blinded by the blood flowing
from the scalp-wounds, it was only by sheer strength of will that he
could keep from falling. At this juncture the servant unfortunately
appeared on the stairs, returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of the
robber. Mistaking the servant with the sword in his hand for the desperado
returning to the attack, and realizing his own helpless condition, the
consul fired two shots at him, wounding him with both shots. The would-be
murderer is now (September 3,1885), captured and in durance vile; the
servant lies here in a critical condition, and the consul and his sorrowing
family are en route to England.

Having determined upon resting here until Monday, I spend a good part
of Friday looking about the city. The population is a mixture of Turks,
Armenians, Russians, Persians, and Jews. Here. I first make the acquaintance
of a Persian tchai-khan (tea-drinking shop). With the exception of the
difference in the beverages, there is little difference between a tchai-
khan and a Icahvay-lchan, although in the case of a swell establishment,
the tchai-khan blossoms forth quite gaudily with scores of colored lamps.
The tea is served scalding hot in tiny glasses, which are first half-filled
with loaf-sugar. If the proprietor is desirous of honoring or pleasing
a new or distinguished customer, he drops in lumps of sugar until it
protrudes above the glass. The tea is made in a samovar-a brass vessel,
holding perhaps a gallon of water, with a hollow receptacle in the centre
for a charcoal fire. Strong tea is made in an ordinary queen's-ware
teapot that fits into the hollow; a small portion of this is poured into
the glass, which is then filled up with hot water from a tap in the
samovar.

There is a regular Persian quarter in Erzeroum, and I am not suffered
to stroll through it without being initiated into the fundamental
difference between the character of the Persians and the Turks. When an
Osmanli is desirous of seeing me ride the bicycle, he goes honestly and
straightforwardly to work at coaxing and worrying; except in very rare
instances they have seemed incapable of resorting to deceit or sharp
practice to gain their object. Not so childlike and honest, however, are
our new acquaintances, the Persians. Several merchants gather round me,
and pretty soon they cunningly begin asking me how much I will sell the
bicycle for. " Fifty liras," I reply, seeing the deep, deep scheme hidden
beneath the superficial fairness of their observations, and thinking
this will quash all further commercial negotiations. But the wily Persians
are not so easily disposed of as this. "Bring it round and let us see
how it is ridden," they say, " and if we like it we will purchase it for
fifty liras, and perhaps make you a present besides." A Persian would
rather try to gain an end by deceit than by honest and above-board
methods, even if the former were more trouble. Lying, cheating, and
deception is the universal rule among them; honesty and straightforwardness
are unknown virtues. Anyone whom they detect telling the truth or acting
honestly they consider a simpleton unfit to transact business. The
missionaries and their families are at present tenting out, five miles
south of the city, in a romantic little ravine called Kirk-dagheman, or
the place of the forty mills; and on Saturday morning I receive a pressing
invitation to become their guest during the remainder of my stay. The
Erzeroum mission is represented by Mr. Chambers, his brother-now absent
on a tour-their respective families, and Miss Powers. Yusuph Effendi
accompanies us out to the camp on a spendid Arab steed, that curvets
gracefully the whole way. Myself and the-other missionary people (bicycle
work at Sivas, and again at Erzeroum) ride more sober and deco-ous
animals. Kirkdagheman is found to be near the entrance to a pass over
the Palantokan Mountains. Half a dozen small tents are pitched beneath
the only grove of trees for many a mile around. A dancing stream of
crystal water furnishes the camp with an abundance of that necessary,
as also a lavish supply of such music as babbling brooks coursing madly
over pebbly beds are wont to furnish. To this particular section of the
little stream legendary lore has attached a story which gives the locality
its name, Kirkdagheman.

" Once upon a time, a worthy widow found herself the happy possessor of
no less than forty small grist-mills strung along this stream. Soon after
her husband's death, the lady's amiable qualities-and not unlikely her
forty mills into the bargain-attracted the admiration of a certain wealthy
owner of flocks in the neighborhood, and he sought her hand in marriage.
'No,' said the lady, who, being a widow, had perhaps acquired wisdom; '
no; I have forty sons, each one faithfully laboring and contributing
cheerfully toward my support; therefore, I have no use for a husband.'
' I will kill your forty sons, and compel you to become my wife,' replied
the suitor, in a huff at being rejected. And he went and sheared all his
sheep, and, with the multitudinous fleeces, dammed up the stream, caused
the water to flow into other channels, and thereby rendered the widow's
forty mills useless and unproductive. With nothing but ruination before
her, and seeing no alternative, the widow's heart finally softened, and
she suffered herself to be wooed and won. The fleeces were removed, the
stream returned to its proper channel, and the merry whir of the forty
mills henceforth mingled harmoniously with tlie bleating of the sheep."
Two days are spent at the quiet missionary camp, and thoroughly enjoyed.
It seems like an oasis of home life in the surrounding desert of uncongenial
social conditions. I eagerly devour the contents of several American
newspapers, and embrace the opportunities of the occasion, even to the
extent of nursing the babies (missionaries seem rare folks for babies),
of which there are three in camp. The altitude of Erzeroum is between
six thousand and seven thousand feet; the September nights are delightfully
cool, and there are no blood-thirsty mosquitoes. I am assigned a sleeping-
tent close alongside a small waterfall, whose splashing music is a
soporific that holds me in the bondage of beneficial repose until breakfast
is announced both mornings; and on Monday morning I feel as though the
hunger, the irregular sleep, and the rough-and-tumble dues generally of
the past four weeks were but a troubled dream. Again the bicycle contributes
its curiosity-quickening and question-exciting powers for the benefit
of the sluggish-minded pupils of the mission school. The Persian consul
and his sons come to see me ride ; he is highly interested upon learning
that I am travelling on the wheel to the Persian capital, and he vises
my passport and gives me a letter of introduction to the Pasha Khan of
Ovahjik, the first village I shall come to beyond the frontier.

It is nearly 3 P.M., September 7th, when I bid farewell to everybody,
and wheel out through the Persian Gate, accompanied by Mr. Chambers on
horseback, who rides part way to the Deve Boyun (camel's neck) Pass. On
the way out he tells me that he has been intending taking a journey
through the Caucasus this autumn, but the difficulties of obtaining
permission, on account of his being a clergyman, are so great-a special
permission having to be obtained from St. Petersburg-that he has about
relinquished the idea for the present season. Deve Boyun Pass leads over
a comparatively low range of hills. It was here where the Turkish army,
in November, 1877, made their last gallant attempt to stem the tide of
disaster that had, by the fortunes of war and the incompeteucy of their
commanders, set in irresistibly against them, before taking refuge inside
the walls of the city. An hour after parting from Mr. Chambers I am
wheeling briskly down the same road on the eastern slope of the pass
where Mukhtar Pasha's ill-fated column was drawn into the fatal ambuscade
that suddenly turned the fortunes of the day against them. While rapidly
gliding down the gentle gradient, I fancy I can see the Cossack regiments,
advancing toward the Turkish position, the unwary and over-confident
Osmanlis leaping from their intrenchments to advance along the road and
drive them back; now I come to the Nabi Tchai ravines, where the concealed
masses of Eussian infantry suddenly sprang up and cut off their retreat;
I fancy I can see- chug! wh-u-u-p! thud!-stars, and see them pretty
distinctly, too, for while gazing curiously about, locating the Russian
ambushment, the bicycle strikes a sand-hole, and I am favored with the
worst header I have experienced for many a day. I am-or rather was, a
minute ago-bowling along quite briskly; the header treats me to a fearful
shaking up; I arn sore all over the next morning, and present a sort of
a stiff-necked, woe-begone appearance for the next four days. A bent
handle-bar and a slightly twisted rear wheel fork likewise forcibly
remind me that, while I am beyond the reach of repair shops, it will be
Solomon-like wisdom on my part to henceforth survey battle-fields with
a larger margin of regard for things more immediately interesting. From
the pass, my road descends into the broad and cultivated valley of the
Passin Su; the road is mostly ridable, though heavy with dust. Part way
to Hassen Kaleh I am compelled to use considerable tact to avoid trouble
with a gang of riotous kalir-jees whom I overtake; as I attempt to wheel
past, one of them wantonly essays to thrust his stick into the wheel;
as I spring from the saddle for sheer self-protection, they think I have
dismounted to attack him, and his comrades rush forward to his protection,
brandishing their sticks and swords in a menacing manner. Seeing himself
reinforced, as it were, the bold aggressor raises his stick as though
to strike me, and peremptorily orders me to bin and haidi. Very naturally
I refuse to remount the bicycle while surrounded by this evidently
mischievous crew; there are about twenty of them, and it requires much
self-control to prevent a conflict, in which, I am persuaded, somebody
would have been hurt; however, I finally manage to escape their undesirable
company and ride off amid a fusillade of stones. This incident reminds
me of Yusuph Effendi's warning, that even though I had come thus far
without a zaptieh escort, I should require one now, owing to the more
lawless disposition of the people near the frontier. Near dark I reach
Hassan Kaleh, a large village nestling under the shadow of its former
importance as a fortified town, and seek the accommodation of a Persian
tchai-khan; it is not very elaborate or luxurious accommodation, consisting
solely of tiny glasses of sweetened tea in the public room and a shake-down
in a rough, unfurnished apartment over the stable; eatables have to be
obtained elsewhere, but it matters little so long as they are obtainable
somewhere. During the evening a Persian troubadour and story-teller
entertains the patrons of the tchai-khan by singing ribaldish songs,
twanging a tambourine-like instrument, and telling stories in a sing-song
tone of voice. In deference to the mixed nationality of his audience,
the sagacious troubadour wears a Turkish fez, a Persian coat, and a
Eussian metallic-faced belt; the burden of his songs are of Erzeroum,
Erzingan, and Ispahan; the Russians, it would appear, are too few and
unpopular to justify risking the displeasure of the Turks by singing any
Eussian songs. So far as my comprehension goes, the stories are chiefly
of intrigue and love affairs among pashas, and would quickly bring the
righteous retribution of the Lord Chamberlain down about his ears, were
he telling them to an English audience. I have no small difficulty in
getting the bicycle up the narrow and crooked stairway into my sleeping
apartment; there is no fastening of any kind on the door, and the
proprietor seems determined upon treating every subject of the Shah in
Hassan Kaleh to a private confidential exhibition of myself and bicycle,
after I have retired to bed. It must be near midnight, I think, when I
am again awakened from my uneasy, oft-disturbed slumbers by murmuring
voices and the shuffling of feet; examining the bicycle by the feeble
glimmer of a classic lamp are a dozen meddlesome Persians. Annoyed at
their unseemly midnight intrusion, and at being repeatedly awakened, I
rise up and sing out at them rather authoratively; I have exhibited the
marifet of my Smith & Wesson during the evening, and these intruders
seem really afraid I might be going to practise on them with it. The
Persians are apparently timid mortals; they evidently regard me as a
strange being of unknown temperament, who might possibly break loose and
encompass their destruction on the slightest provocation, and the
proprietor and another equally intrepid individual hurriedly come to my
couch, and pat me soothingly on the shoulders, after which they all
retire, and I am disturbed no more till morning. The " rocky road to
Dublin " is nothing compared to the road leading eastward from Hassan
Kaleh for the first few miles, but afterward it improves into very fair
wheeling. Eleven miles down the Passiu Su Valley brings me to the Armenian
village of Kuipri Kui. Having breakfasted before starting I wheel on
without halting, crossing the Araxes Eiver at the junction of the Passin
Su, on a very ancient stone bridge known as the Tchebankerpi, or the
bridge of pastures, said to be over a thousand years old. Nearing Dele
Baba Pass, a notorious place for robbers, I pass through a village of
sedentary Koords. Soon after leaving the village a wild-looking Koord,
mounted on an angular sorrel, overtakes me and wants me to employ him
as a guard while going through the pass, backing up the offer of his
presumably valuable services by unsheathing a semi-rusty sword and waving
it valiantly aloft. He intimates, by tragically graphic pantomime, that
unless I traverse the pass under the protecting shadow of his ancient
and rusty blade, I will be likely to pay the penalty of my rashness by
having my throat cut. Yusuph Effendi and the Erzeroum missionaries have
thoughtfully warned me against venturing through the Dele Baba Pass
alone, advising me to wait and go through with a Persian caravan; but
this Koord looks like anything but a protector; on the contrary, I am
inclined to regard him as a suspicious character himself, interviewing
me, perhaps, with ulterior ideas of a more objectionable character than
that of faithfully guarding me through the Dele Baba Pass. Showing him
the shell-extracting mechanism of my revolver, and explaining the rapidity
with which it can be fired, I give him to understand that I feel quite
capable of guarding myself, consequently have no earthly use for his
services. A tea caravan of some two hundred camels are resting near the
approach to the pass, affording me an excellent opportunity of having
company through by waiting and journeying with them in the night; but
warnings of danger have been repeated so often of late, and they have
proved themselves groundless so invariably that I should feel the taunts
of self-reproach were I to find myself hesitating to proceed on their
account. Passing over a mountain spur, I descend into a rocky canon,
with perpendicular walls of rock towering skyward like giant battlements,
inclosing a space not over fifty yards wide; through this runs my road,
and alongside it babbles the Dele Baba Su. The canon is a wild, lonely-
looking spot, and looks quite appropriate to the reputation it bears.
Professor Vambery, a recognized authority on Asiatic matters, and whose
party encountered a gang of marauders here, says the Dele Baba Pass bore
the same unsavory reputation that it bears to-day as far back as the
time of Herodotus. However, suffice it to say, that I get through without
molestation; mounted men, armed to the teeth, like almost everybody else
hereabouts, are encountered in the pass; they invariably halt and look
back after me as though endeavoring to comprehend who and what I am, but
that is all. Emerging from the canon, I follow in a general course the
tortuous windings of the Dele Baba Su through another ravine- riven
battle-field of the late war, and up toward its source in a still more
mountainous and elevated region beyond.






CHAPTER XVIII.




MOUNT ARARAT AND KOORDISTAN.

The shades of evening are beginning to settle down over the wild mountainous
country round about. It is growing uncomfortably chilly for this early
in the evening, and the prospects look favorable for a supperless and
most disagreeable night, when I descry a village perched in an opening
among the mountains a mile or thereabouts off to the right. Repairing
thither, I find it to be a Koordish village, where the hovels are more
excavations than buildings; buffaloes, horses, goats, chickens, and human
beings all find shelter under the same roof; their respective quarters
are nothing but a mere railing of rough poles, and as the question of
ventilation is never even thought of, the effect upon one's olfactory
nerves upon entering is anything but reassuring. The filth and rags of
these people is something abominable; on account of the chilliness of
the evening they have donned their heavier raiment; these have evidently
had rags patched on. top of other rags for years past until they have
gradually developed into thick-quilted garments, in the innumerable
seams of which the most disgusting entomological specimens, bred and
engendered by their wretched mode of existence, live and perpetuate their
kind. However, repulsive as the outlook most assuredly is, I have no
alternative but to cast my lot among them till morning. I am conducted
into the Sheikh's apartment, a small room partitioned off with a pole
from a stable-full of horses and buffaloes, and where darkness is made
visible by the sickly glimmer of a grease lamp. The Sheikh, a thin,
sallow-faced man of about forty years, is reclining on a mattress in one
corner smoking cigarettes; a dozen ill-conditioned ragamuffins are
squatting about in various attitudes, while the rag, tag, and bobtail
of the population crowd into the buffalo-stable and survey me and the
bicycle from outside the partition-pole.

A circular wooden tray containing an abundance of bread, a bowl of yaort,
and a small quantity of peculiar stringy cheese that resembles chunks
of dried codfish, warped and twisted in the drying, is brought in and
placed in the middle of the floor. Everybody in the room at once gather
round it and begin eating with as little formality as so many wild
animals; the Sheikh silently motions for me to do the same. The yaort
bowl contains one solitary wooden spoon, with which they take turns at
eating mouthfuls. One is compelled to draw the line somewhere, even under
the most uncompromising circumstances, and I naturally draw it against
eating yaort with this same wooden spoon; making small scoops with pieces
of bread, I dip up yaort and eat scoop and all together. These particular
Koords seem absolutely ignorant of anything in the shape of mannerliness,
or of consideration for each other at the table. When the yaort has been
dipped into twice or thrice all round, the Sheikh coolly confiscates the
bowl, eats part of what is left, pours water into the remainder, stirs
it up with his hand, and deliberately drinks it all up; one or two others
seize all the cheese, utterly regardless of the fact that nothing remains
for myself and their companions, who, by the by, seem to regard it as a
perfectly natural proceeding.

After supper they return to their squatting attitudes around the room,
and to a resumption of their never-ceasing occupation of scratching
themselves. The eminent economist who lamented the wasted energy represented
in the wagging of all the dogs' tails in the world, ought to have travelled
through Asia on a bicycle and have been compelled to hob-nob with the
villagers; he would undoubtedly have wept with sorrow at beholding the
amount of this same wasted energy, represented by the above-mentioned
occupation of the people. The most loathsome member of this interesting
company is a wretched old hypocrite who rolls his eyes about and heaves
a deep-drawn sigh of Allah! every few minutes, and then looks furtively
at myself and the Sheikh to observe its effects; his sole garment is a
round-about mantle that reaches to his knees, and which seems to have
been manufactured out of the tattered remnants of other tattered remnants
tacked carelessly together without regard to shape, size, color, or
previous condition of cleanliness; his thin, scrawny legs are bare, his
long black hair is matted and unkempt, his beard is stubby and unlovely
to look upon, his small black eyes twinkle in the semi-darkness like
ferret's eyes, while soap and water have to all appearances been altogether
stricken from the category of his personal requirements. Probably it is
nothing but the lively workings of my own imagination, but this wretch
appears to me to entertain a decided preference for my society, constantly
insinuating himself as near me as possible, necessitating constant
watchfulness on my part to avoid actual contact with him; eternal
vigilance is in this case the price of what it is unnecessary to expatiate
upon, further than to say that self-preservation becomes, under such
conditions, preeminently the first law of Occidental nature. Soon the
sallow-faced Sheikh suddenly bethinks himself that he is in the august
presence of a hakim, and beckoning me to his side, displays an ugly wound
on his knee which has degenerated into a running sore, and which he says
was done with a sword; of course he wants me to perform a cure. While
examining the Sheikh's knee, another old party comes forward and unbares
his arm, also wounded with a sword. This not unnaturally sets me to
wondering what sort of company I have gotten into, and how they came by
sword wounds in these peaceful times; but my inquisitivencss is compelled
to remain in abeyance to my limited linguistic powers. Having nothing
to give them for the wounds, I recommend an application of warm salt
water twice a day; feeling pretty certain, however, that they will be
too lazy and trifling to follow the advice. Before dispersing to their
respective quarters, the occupants of the room range themselves in a row
and go through a religious performance lasting fully half an hour; they
make almost as much noise as howling dervishes, meanwhile exercising
themselves quite violently. Having made themselves holier than ever by
these exercises, some take their departure, others make up couches on
the floor with sheepskins and quilts. Thin ice covers the still pools
of water when I resume my toilsome route over the mountains at daybreak,
a raw wind coines whistling from the east, and until the sun begins to
warm things up a little, it is necessary to stop and buffet occasionally
to prevent benumbed hands. Obtaining some small lumps of wheaten dough
cooked crisp in hot grease, like unsweetened doughnuts, from a horseman
on the road, I push ahead toward the summit and then down the eastern
slope of the mountains; rounding an abutting hill about 9.30, the glorious
snow-crowned peak of Ararat suddenly bursts upon my vision; it is a good
forty leagues away, but even at this distance it dwarfs everything else
in sight. Although surrounded by giant mountain chains that traverse the
country at every conceivable angle, Ararat stands alone in its solitary
grandeur, a glistening white cone rearing its giant height proudly and
conspicuously above surrounding eminences; about mountains that are
insignificant only in comparison with the white-robed monarch that has
been a beacon-light of sacred history since sacred history has been in
existence.

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