acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

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98 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
I got far-off glimpses of the road to be travelled,
not so much in the middle distance as in the background,
where it would show as a narrow white
ribbon twisting upon the slopes. But now, for all
my gazing, no such hint of the way could be seen.
Would the road presently follow the bottom of some
unseen gorge, or would it, after all, climb over the
ridges ? Somewhere among these lay Chengel, a
village I was to reach at noon, and report placed
it in a deep valley : the road could not withhold
the secret of its course long. On an unfamiliar
highway, in a land filled with mountains, uncertainty
and anticipation of this kind combine into
one of the pleasures a traveller finds.
The road turned on reaching the hills and began
stealing its way upwards, careless of how much it
deviated in search of an easy grade. Somewhere
at this part a group of white military tents appeared,
pitched on a knoll at a little distance. On going
up to them I found they were the camp of a party
of French engineers engaged in making a survey of
the Bao;dad Road. In return for some concession
a monopoly of motor-car services in the interior, I
had Vjeen told in Samsun—a French syndicate had
undertaken to improve the road between Sivas and
the Black Sea. It was a hopeful project, yet one
likely to meet with unexpected difficulties. Turkish
authorities had had their own troubles with improved
roads, and where they failed a foreign syndicate
might well fail also. The difficulty had arisen with
bullock-carts. They are the vehicle of the country,
and the vested interests of bullock-carts are correspondingly
strong, not only in influence, but also in
o ....
force of arms, as one might say.
A bullock-cart carries a ton or more on its two
solid wooden wheels, and these are like wedges
they are five or six inches thick at the hub, an inch
and a half thick at the rim, and have a tyre of that
width formed of half-round iron. A week's traffic
of these carts—traffic such as that on the Bagdad