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74 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
Had in Turkey roast joints as we know them. Meat
is cut into thin slices for roasting, and these are stuck
on a metal spit and built up so that the hundreds of
slices form an inverted cone of ro.eat, perhaps two feet
high and nine or ten inches across the top, around
the spit. The spit is kept revolving before a charcoal
fire, and when meat is required the external
surface of the cone is pared off with a long sharp
knife, and the falling shreds are adroitly caught in
a plate. By evening the cone of meat which looked
so ample at morning has been pared away almost to
the spit.
For less than a shilling I received more roast and
stew and pzYq/" than two men could e?.t. I think that
Achmet knew he was to share the feast, for a sudden
and unexpected turn of humour took him on the
way back to the khan. As he bore the heaped
and glittering plates before me in the street, he
shouted now and then the ara6a-drivers' warning
cry, " Varclar !" " Varda7^
"
After the meal I went out on the balcony behind
the khan, and looked down upon the yard filled
with waggons and arahas. Now and then came
the stamping and whinnying of stabled horses.
Groups of men were smoking ; I could hear the
low tones of their voices, also the buzz of talk and
laughter from the common-room below. The great
eastern precipice stood black and overpowering above
me, showing a ragged edge against a sky I thought
still strangely light. I looked at the minarets,
watched the waxing and waning of the smokers'
cigarettes, sniffed the indescribable smell of a Turkish
city — nowhere stronger than here — and then I
paused. A curious light was spreading round me.
Objects in the yard that had been uncertain were
now distinct. Dim minarets had become white
columns. A fire, I thoug-ht, must have broken out
somewhere, yet I could hear no sounds of alarm.
With that I happened to glance upwards, and there
was the moon now pushing its lower half above