A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Around the World on a Bicycle V1

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




Descending now toward the Alashgird Plain, a prominent theatre of action
during the war, I encounter splendid wheeling for some miles; but once
fairly down on the level, cultivated plain, the road becomes heavy with
dust. Villages dot the broad, expansive plain in every direction; conical
stacks of tezek are observable among the houses, piled high up above the
roofs, speaking of commendable forethought for the approaching cold
weather. In one of the Armenian villages I am not a little surprised at
finding a lone German; he says he prefers an agricultural life in this
country with all its disadvantages, to the hard, grinding struggle for
existence, and the compulsory military service of the Fatherland. "Here,"
he goes on to explain, "there is no foamy lager, no money, no comfort,
no amusement of any kind, but there is individual liberty, and it is
very easy making a living; therefore it is for me a better country than
Deutschland." " Everybody to their liking," I think, as I continue on
across the plain; but for a European to be living in one of these little
agricultural villages comes the nearest to being buried alive of anything
I know of. The road improves in hardness as I proceed eastward, but the
peculiar disadvantages of being a conspicuous and incomprehensible object
on a populous level plain soon becomes manifest. Seeing the bicycle
glistening in the sunlight as I ride along, horsemen come wildly galloping
from villages miles away. Some of these wonderstricken people endeavor
to pilot me along branch trails leading to their villages, but the main
caravan trail is now too easily distinguishable for any little deceptiona
of this kind to succeed. Here, on the Alashgird Plain, I first hear
myself addressed as "Hamsherri," a term which now takes the place of
Effendi for the next five hundred miles. Owing to the disgust engendered
by my unsavory quarters in the wretched Dele Baba village last night, I
have determined upon seeking the friendly shelter of a wheat-shock again
to-night, preferring the chances of being frozen out at midnight to the
entomological possibilities of village hovels. Accordingly, near sunset,
I repair to a village not far from the road, for the purpose of obtaining
something to eat before seeking out a rendezvous for the night. It turns
out to be the Koordish village of Malosman, and the people are found to
be so immeasurably superior in every particular to their kinsfolk of
Dele Baba that I forthwith cancel my determination and accept their
proffered hospitality. The Malosmanlis are comparatively clean and
comfortable; are reasonably well-dressed, seem well-to-do, and both men
and women are, on the average, handsomer than the people of any village
I have seen for days past. Almost all possess a conspicuously beautiful
set of teeth, pleasant, smiling countenances and good physique; they
also seem to have, somehow, acquired easy, agreeable manners. The secret
of the whole difference, I opine, is that, instead of being located among
the inhospitable soil of barren hills they are cultivating the productive
soil of the Alashgird Plain, and, being situated on the great Persian
caravan trail, they find a ready market for their grain in supplying the
caravans in winter. Their Sheikh is a handsome and good-natured young
fellow, sporting white clothes trimmed profusely with red braid; he
spends the evening in my company, examining the bicycle, revolver,
telescopic pencil-case, L.A.W. badge, etc., and hands me his carved
ivory case to select cigarettes from. It would have required considerable
inducements to have trusted either my L.A.W. badge or the Smith &
Wesson in the custody of any of our unsavory acquaintances of last night,
notwithstanding their great outward show of piety. There are no deep-drawn
sighs of Allah, nor ostentatious praying among the Malosmanlis, but they
bear the stamp of superior trustworthiness plainly on their faces and
their bearing. There appears to be far more jocularity than religion
among these prosperous villagers, a trait that probably owes its development
to their apparent security from want; it is no newly discovered trait
of human character to cease all prayers and supplications whenever the
granary is overflowing with plenty, and to commence devotional exercises
again whenever the supply runs short. This rule would hold good among
the childlike natives here, even more so than it does among our more
enlightened selves. I sally forth into the chilly atmosphere of early
morning from Maloaman, and wheel eastward over an excellent road for
some miles; an obliging native, en route to the harvest field, turns his
buffalo araba around and carts me over a bridgeless stream, but several
others have to be forded ere reaching Kirakhan, where I obtain breakfast.
Here I am required to show my teskeri to the mudir, and the zaptieh
escorting me thither becomes greatly mystified over the circumstance
that I am a Frank and yet am wearing a Mussulman head-band around my
helmet (a new one I picked up on the road); this little fact appeals to
him as something savoring of an attempt to disguise myself, and he grows
amusingly mysterious while whisperingly bringing it to the mudir's
notice. The habitual serenity and complacency of the corpulent mudir's
mind, however, is not to be unduly disturbed by trifles, and the untutored
zaptieh's disposition to attach some significant meaning to it, meets
with nothing from his more enlightened superior but the silence of
unconcern. More streams have to be forded ere I finally emerge on to
higher ground; all along the Alashgird Plain, Ararat's glistening peak
has been peeping over the mountain framework of the plain like a white
beacon-light showing above a dark rocky shore; but approaching toward
the eastern extremity of the plain, my road hugs the base of the intervening
hills and it temporarily disappears from view. In this portion of the
country, camels are frequently employed in bringing the harvest from
field to village threshing-floor; it is a curious sight to see these
awkwardly moving animals walking along beneath tremendous loads of straw,
nothing visible but their heads and legs. Sometimes the meandering course
of the Euphrates - now the eastern fork, and called the Moorad-Chai - brings
it near the mountains, and my road leads over bluffs immediately above
it; the historic river seems well supplied with trout hereabouts, I can
look down from the bluffs and observe speckled beauties sporting about
in its pellucid waters by the score. Toward noon I fool away fifteen
minutes trying to beguile one of them into swallowing a grasshopper and
a bent pin, but they are not the guileless creatures they seem to be
when surveyed from an elevated bluff, so they steadily refuse whatever
blandishments I offer. An hour later I reach the village of Daslische,
inhabited by a mixed population of Turks and Persians. At a shop kept
by one of the latter I obtain some bread and ghee (clarified butter),
some tea, and a handful of wormy raisins for dessert; for these articles,
besides building a fire especially to prepare the tea, the unconscionable
Persian charges the awful sum of two piastres (ten cents); whereupon the
Turks, who have been interested spectators of the whole nefarious
proceeding, commence to abuse him roundly for overcharging a stranger
unacquainted with the prices of the locality calling him the son of a
burnt father, and other names that tino-je unpleasantly in the Persian
ear, as though it was a matter of pounds sterling. Beyond Daslische,
Ararat again becomes visible; the country immediately around is a ravine-
riven plateau, covered with bowlders. An hour after leaving Daslische,
while climbing the eastern slope of a ravine, four rough-looking footmen
appear on the opposite side of the slope; they are following after me,
and shouting "Kardash!" These people with their old swords and pistols
conspicuously about them, always raise suspicions of brigands and evil
characters under such circumstances as these, so I continue on up the
slope without heeding their shouting until I observe two of them turn
back; I then wait, out of curiosity, to see what they really want. They
approach with broad grins of satisfaction at having overtaken me: they
have run all the way from Daslische in order to overtake me and see the
bicycle, having heard of it after I had left. I am now but a short
distance from the Russian frontier on the north, and the first Turkish
patrol is this afternoon patrolling the road; he takes a wondering
interest in my wheel, but doesn't ask the oft-repeated question, "Russ
or Ingiliz?" It is presumed that he is too familiar with the Muscovite
"phiz" to make any such question necessary.

About four o'clock I overtake a jack-booted horseman, who straightway
proceeds to try and make himself agreeable; as his flowing remarks are
mostly unintelligible, to spare him from wasting the sweetness of his
eloquence on the desert air around me, I reply, "Turkchi binmus." Instead
of checking the impetuous torrent of his remarks at hearing this, he
canters companionably alongside, and chatters more persistently than
ever. "T-u-r-k-chi b-i-n-m-u-s!" I repeat, becoming rather annoyed at
his persistent garrulousness and his refusal to understand. This has
the desired effect of reducing him to silence; but he canters doggedly
behind, and, after a space creeps up alongside again, and, pointing to
a large stone building which has now become visible at the base of a
mountain on the other side of the Euphrates, timidly ventures upon the
explanation that it is the Armenian Gregorian Monastery of Sup Ogwanis
(St. John). Finding me more favorably disposed to listen than before,
he explains that he himself is an Armenian, is acquainted with the priests
of the monastery, and is going to remain there over night; he then
proposes that I accompany him thither, and do likewise. I am, of course,
only too pleased at the prospect of experiencing something out of the
common, and gladly avail myself of the opportunity; moreover, monasteries
and religious institutions in general, have somehow always been pleasantly
associated in my thoughts as inseparable accompaniments of orderliness
and cleanliness, and I smile serenely to myself at the happy prospect
of snowy sheets, and scrupulously clean cooking.

Crossing the Euphrates on a once substantial stone bridge, now in a sadly
dilapidated condition, that was doubtless built when Armenian monasteries
enjoyed palmier days than the present, we skirt the base of a compact
mountain and in a few minutes alight at the monastery village. Exit
immediately all visions of cleanliness; the village is in no wise different
from any other cluster of mud hovels round about, and the rag-bedecked,
flea-bitten objects that come outside to gaze at us, if such a thing
were possible, compare unfavorably even with the Dele Baba Koords. There
is apparent at once, however, a difference between the respective
dispositions of the two peoples: the Koords are inclined to be pig-headed
and obtrusive, as though possessed of their full share of the spirit of
self-assertion; the Sup Ogwanis people, on the contrary, act like beings
utterly destitute of anything of the kind, cowering beneath one's look
and shunning immediate contact as though habitually overcome with a sense
of their own inferiority. The two priests come out to see the bicycle
ridden; they are stout, bushy-whiskered, greasy-looking old jokers, with
small twinkling black eyes, whose expression would seem to betoken
anything rather than saintliness, and, although the Euphrates flows hard
by, they are evidently united in their enmity against soap and water,
if in nothing else; in fact, judging from outward appearances, water is
about the only thing concerning which they practise abstemiousness. The
monastery itself is a massive structure of hewn stone, surrounded by a
high wall loop-holed for defence; attached to the wall inside is a long
row of small rooms or cells, the habitations of the monks in more
prosperous days; a few of them are occupied at present by the older men.;
At 5.30 P.M., the bell tolls for evening service, and I accompany my
guide into the monastery; it is a large, empty-looking edifice of simple,
massive architecture, and appears to have been built with a secondary
purpose of withstanding a siege or an assault, and as a place of refuge
for the people in troublous times; containing among other secular
appliances a large brick oven for baking bread. During the last war, the
place was actually bombarded by the Russiaus in an effort to dislodge a
body of Koords who had taken possession of the monastery, and from behind
its solid walls, harassed the Russian troops advancing toward Erzeroum.
The patched up holes made by the Russians' shots are pointed out, as
also some light earthworks thrown up on the Russian position across the
river. In these degenerate days one portion of the building is utilized
as a storehouse for grain; hundreds of pigeons are cooing and roosting
on the crossbeams, making the place their permanent abode, passing in
and out of narrow openings near the roof; and the whole interior is in
a disgustingly filthy condition. Rude fresco representations of the
different saints in the Gregorian calendar formerly adorned the walls,
and bright colored tiles embellished the approach to the altar. Nothing
is distinguishable these days but the crumbling and half-obliterated
evidences of past glories; both priests and people seem hopelessly sunk
in the quagmire of avariciousness and low cunning on the one hand, and
of blind ignorance and superstition on the other. Clad in greasy and
seedy-looking cowls, the priests go through a few nonsensical manosuvres,
consisting chiefly of an ostentatious affectation of reverence toward
an altar covered with tattered drapery, by never turning their backs
toward it while they walk about, Bible in hand, mumbling and sighing.
My self-constituted guide and myself comprise the whole congregation
during the "services." Whenever the priests heave a particularly deep-
fetched sigh or fall to mumbling their prayers on the double quick, they
invariably cast a furtive glance toward me, to ascertain whether I am
noticing the impenetrable depth of their holiness. They needn't be uneasy
on that score, however; the most casual observer cannot fail to perceive
that it is really and truly impenetrable - so impenetrable, in fact, that
it will never be unearthed, not even at the day of judgment. In about
ten minutes the priests quit mumbling, bestow a Pharisaical kiss on the
tattered coverlet of their Bibles, graciously suffer my jack-booted
companion to do likewise, as also two or three ragamuffins who have come
sneaking in seemingly for that special purpose, and then retreat hastily
behind a patch-work curtain; the next minute they reappear in a cowlless
condition, their countenances wearing an expression of intense relief,
as though happy at having gotten through with a disagreeable task that
had been weighing heavily on their minds all day.

We are invited to take supper with their Reverences in their cell beneath
the walls, which they occupy in common. The repast consists of yaort and
pillau, to which is added, by way of compliment to visitors, five salt
fishes about the size of sardines. The most greasy-looking of the divines
thoughtfully helps himself to a couple of the fishes as though they were
a delicacy quite irresistible, leaving one apiece for us others. Having
created a thirst with the salty fish, he then seizes what remains of the
yaort, pours water into it, mixes it thoroughly together with his unwashed
hand, and gulps down a full quart of the swill with far greater gusto
than mannerliness. Soon the priests commence eructating aloud, which
appears to be a well-understood signal that the limit of their respective
absorptive capacities are reached, for three hungry-eyed laymen, who
have been watching our repast with seemingly begrudging countenances,
now carry the wooden tray bodily off into a corner and ravenously devour
the remnants. Everything about the cell is abnormally filthy, and I am
glad when the inevitable cigarettes are ended and we retire to the
quarters assigned us in the village. Here my companion produces from
some mysterious corner of his clothing a pinch of tea and a few lumps
of sugar. A villager quickly kindles a fire and cooks the tea, performing
the services eagerly, in anticipation of coming in for a modest share
of what to him is an unwonted luxury. Being rewarded with a tiny glassful
of tea and a lump of sugar, he places the sweet morsel in his mouth and
sucks the tea through it with noisy satisfaction, prolonging the presumably
delightful sensation thereby produced to fully a couple of minutes.
During this brief indulgence of his palate, a score of his ragged co-
religionists stand around and regard him with mingled envy and covetousness;
but for two whole minutes he occupies his proud eminence in the lap of
comparative luxury, and between slow, lingering sucks at the tea, regards
their envious attention with studied indifference. One can scarcely
conceive of a more utterly wretched people than the monastic community
of Sup Ogwanis; one would not be surprised to find them envying even the
pariah curs of the country. The wind blows raw and chilly from off the
snowy slopes of Ararat next morning, and the shivering, half-clad-wretches
shuffle off toward the fields and pastures, - with blue noses and unwilling
faces, humping their backs and shrinking within themselves and wearing
most lugubrious countenances; one naturally falls to wondering what they
do in the winter. The independent villagers of the surrounding country
have a tough enough time of it, worrying through the cheerless winters
of a treeless and mountainous country; but they at least have no domestic
authority to obey but their own personal and family necessities, and
they consume the days huddled together in their unventilated hovels over
a smouldering tezek fire; but these people seem but helpless dolts under
the vassalage of a couple of crafty-looking, coarse-grained priests, who
regard them with less consideration than they do the monastery buffaloes.
Eleven miles over a mostly ridable trail brings me to the large village
of Dyadin. Dyadin is marked on my map as quite an important place,
consequently I approach it with every assurance of obtaining a good
breakfast. My inquiries for refreshments are met with importunities of
bin bacalem, from five hundred of the rag-tag and bobtail of the frontier,
the rowdiest and most inconsiderate mob imaginable. In their eagerness
and impatience to see me ride, and their exasperating indifference to
my own pressing wants, some of them tell me bluntly there is no bread;
others, more considerate, hurry away and bring enough bread to feed a
dozen people, and one fellow contributes a couple of onions. Pocketing
the onions and some of the bread, I mount and ride away from the madding
crowd with whatever despatch is possible, and retire into a secluded
dell near the road, a mile from town, to eat my frugal breakfast in peace
and quietness. While thus engaged, it is with veritable savage delight
that I hear a company of horsemen go furiously galloping past; they are
Dyadin people endeavoring to overtake me for the kindly purpose of
worrying me out of my senses, and to prevent me even eating a bite of
bread unseasoned with their everlasting gabble. Although the road from
Dyadin eastward leads steadily upward, they fancy that nothing less than
a wild, sweeping gallop will enable them to accomplish their fell purpose;
I listen to their clattering hoof-beats dying away in the dreamy distance,
with a grin of positively malicious satisfaction, hoping sincerely that
they will keep galloping onward for the next twenty miles. No such happy
consummation of my wishes occurs, however; a couple of miles up the
ascent I find them hobnobbing with some Persian caravan men and patiently
awaiting my appearance, having learned from the Persians that I had not
yet gone past. Mingled with the keen disappointment of overtaking them
so quickly, is the pleasure of witnessing the Persians' camels regaling
themselves on a patch of juicy thistles of most luxuriant growth; the
avidity with which they attack the great prickly vegetation, and the
expression of satisfaction, utter and peculiar, that characterizes a
camel while munching a giant thistle stalk that protrudes two feet out
of his mouth, is simply indescribable.

>From this pass I descend into the Aras Plain, and, behold the gigantic
form of Ararat rises up before me, seemingly but a few miles away; as a
matter of fact it is about twenty miles distant, but with nothing
intervening between myself and its tremendous proportions but the level
plain, the distance is deceptive. No human habitations are visible save
the now familiar black tents of Koordish tribesmen away off to the north,
and as I ride along I am overtaken by a sensation of being all alone in
the company of an overshadowing and awe-inspiring presence. One's attention
seems irresistibly attracted toward the mighty snow-crowrned monarch,
as though,the immutable law of attraction were sensibly exerting itself
to draw lesser bodies to it, and all other objects around seemed dwarfed
into insignificant proportions. One obtains a most comprehensive idea
of Ararat's 17,325 feet when viewing it from the Aras Plain, as it rises
sheer from the plain, and not from the shoulders of a range that constitutes
of itself the greater part of the height, as do many mountain peaks. A
few miles to the eastward is Little Ararat, an independent conical peak
of 12,800 feet, without snow, but conspicuous and distinct from surrounding
mountains; its proportions are completely dwarfed and overshadowed by
the nearness and bulkiness of its big brother. The Aras Plain is lava-strewn
and uncultivated for a number of miles; the spongy, spreading feet of
innumerable camels have worn paths in the hard lava deposit that makes
the wheeling equal to English roads, except for occasional stationary
blocks of lava that the animals have systematically stepped over for
centuries, and which not infrequently block the narrow trail and compel
a dismount. Evidently Ararat was once a volcano; the lofty peak which
now presents a wintry appearance even in the hottest summer weather,
formerly belched forth lurid flames that lit up the surrounding country,
and poured out fiery torrents of molten lava that stratified the abutting
hills, and spread like an overwhelming flood over the Aras Plain. Abutting
Ararat on the west are stratiform hills, the strata of which are plainly
distinguishable from the Persian trail and which, were their inclination
continued, would strike Ararat at or near the summit. This would seem
to indicate the layers to be representations of the mountain's former
volcanic overflowings. I am sitting on a block of lava making an outline
sketch of Ararat, when a peasant happens along with a bullock-load of
cucumbers which he is taking to the Koordish camps; he is pretty badly
scared at finding himself all alone on the Aras Plain with such a
nondescript and dangerous-looking object as a helmeted wheelman, and
when I halt him with inquiries concerning the nature of his wares he
turns pale and becomes almost speechless with fright. He would empty his
sacks as a peace-offering at my feet without venturing upon a remonstrance,
were he ordered to do so; and when I relieve him of but one solitary
cucumber, and pay him more than he would obtain for it among the Koords,
he becomes stupefied with astonishment; when he continues on his way he
hardly knows whether he is on his head or his feet. An hour later I
arrive at Kizil Dizah, the last village in Turkish territory, and an
official station of considerable importance, where passports, caravan
permits, etc., of everybody passing to or from Persia have to be examined.
An officer here provides me with refreshments, and while generously
permitting the population to come in and enjoy the extraordinary spectacle
of seeing me fed, he thoughtfully stations a man with a stick to keep
them at a respectful distance. A later hour in the afternoon finds me
trundling up a long acclivity leading to the summit of a low mountain
ridge; arriving at the summit I stand on the boundary-line between the
dominions of the Sultan and the Shah, and I pause a minute to take a
brief, retrospective glance. The cyclometer, affixed to the bicycle at
Constantinople, now registers within a fraction of one thousand miles;
it has been on the whole an arduous thousand miles, but those who in the
foregoing pages have followed me through the strange and varied experiences
of the journey will agree with me when I say that it has proved more
interesting than arduous after all. I need not here express any blunt
opinions of the different people encountered; it is enough that my
observations concerning them have been jotted down as I have mingled
with them and their characteristics from day to day; almost without
exception, they have treated me the best they knew how; it is only natural
that some should know how better than others. Bidding farewell, then,
to the land of the Crescent and the home of the unspeakable Osmanli, I
wheel down a gentle slope into a mountain-environed area of cultivated
fields, where Persian peasants are busy gathering their harvest. The
strange apparition observed descending from the summit of the boundary
attracts universal attention; I can hear them calling out to each other,
and can see horsemen come wildly galloping from every direction. In a
few minutes the road in my immediate vicinity is alive with twenty
prancing steeds; some are bestrode by men who, from the superior quality
of their clothes and the gaudy trappings of their horses, are evidently
in good circumstances; others by wild-looking, barelegged bipeds, whose
horses' trappings consist of nothing but a bridle. The transformation
brought about by crossing the mountain ridge is novel and complete; the
fez, so omnipresent throughout the Ottoman dominions, has disappeared,
as if by magic; the better class Persians wear tall, brimless black hats
of Astrakan lamb's wool; some of the peasantry wear an unlovely, close-
fitting skullcap of thick gray felt, that looks wonderfully like a bowl
clapped on top of their heads, others sport a huge woolly head-dress
like the Roumanians; this latter imparts to them a fierce, war-like
appearance, that the meek-eyed Persian ryot (tiller of the soil) is far
from feeling. The national garment is a sort of frock-coat gathered at
the waist, and with a skirt of ample fulness, reaching nearly to the
knees; among the wealthier class the material of this garment is usually
cloth of a solid, dark color, and among the ryots or peasantry, of calico
or any cheap fabric they can obtain. Loose-fitting pantaloons of European
pattern, and sometimes top-boots, with tops ridiculously ample in their
looseness, characterize the nether garments of the better classes; the
ryots go mostly bare-legged in summer, and wear loose, slipper-like foot-
gear; the soles of both boots and shoes are frequently pointed, and made
to turn up and inwards, after the fashion in England centuries ago.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.