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70 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
In this land are curious processes of manufacture
: of preparing food, of cultivation, and the
like, which leave you wondering by what series
of accidents they were discovered. They are the
immemorial craft of a people who have yet to adopt
machinery. One of these strange processes I saw
now. An even, beating sound came from beside the
road ; I knew what it was, but had never yet seen
the operation that caused it. Not many European
men, even in Turkey, see a Turkish woman making
pehnez ; but this was the sight I saw on peering
cautiously through the willows. PeJcmez is grape
juice, boiled, and then prepared by beating, which
changes it from a thin watery fluid to a thick
partially-crystallised substance like clouded honey,
but of a colour nearly as dark as treacle. These
methods are fairly obvious ; the curious part is that
the beating must be done with the open hand, and
nothing else. You cannot make ijekniez by beating
with wood, or bone, or metal, so you are told. And
further, once the beating has begun it must go on
to the end without ceasing, or the ^^eA^^nes will be
spoiled—there must be no cessation of blows at all.
After the grape-harvest, therefore, Turkish towns and
villages resound with the making of pehnez. You
hear beating all day and beating all night. For the
process is a long one,—so long that the women and
girls take turns at the work, and beat until their
hands are blistered and painful. It is said that
sometimes the labour lasts a day and night. What
I saw now behind the bushes was a woman kneeling
on the ground before a shallow, open bowl nearly
two feet across. With arms bare and open hands she
was steadily slapping the contents, and by her halfclosed
eyes and look of resignation I supposed she
had not only been at the work some time, but that
the obstinate stuff was still far from being j^ehnez.
I had not gone a mile before noise of another kind
attracted my attention. It was rumbling and heavy,
and grew louder as I advanced, until the ravine, in