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DEFYING THE LAW 99
Koad— cuts any sort of macadamised highway into
ribbons. Not without cause is the road generally
paved with boulders. A surface of rounded boulders,
like loaves of bread set close together, is the only
metalling that can withstand these devastating wheels.
So when macadamised roads were formed, bullock-carts
were forbidden them unless flat tyres of much greater
width were fitted. The change involved new wheels,
and affected, indeed, the whole country population.
They regarded it as an infringement of their rights,
as a hateful foreign innovation, and holding these
views defied the law, confident in their ability to
resist. To enforce the law was not merely a matter
of putting down riots, but of fighting great bodies of
angry and obstinate men, armed with firearms and
accustomed to use them. Coercion was beyond the
power of zaptielis and gendarmes, and wherever
bullock-carts were the customary vehicle the new
law fell into abeyance, and the macadamised road
was destroyed.
At Chenoel I discovered one of the few drawbacks
of going afoot on this road. As a pedestrian
I could not keep the araba stages between the large
towns, and so missed the good khans. I went down
into Chengel between rocks and wooded hills, with
a clear stream rushing beside the road, and in the
valley bottom, in beautiful surroundings, were two
excellent JcJians side by side. They were the stoppingplaces
which araba passengers into and out of Amasia
always made a point of reaching. But they were not
for me ; the hour was only noon, and I had travelled
only a dozen miles. My stages, I saw, must be those
of pedestrians—of donkey -men, pack-horse drivers,
bullock-cart drivers, and the like, and I must stay
at their I'hans. The spanking araba, averaging its
forty miles a day, divided the road into one set of
stages provided with suitable khans; the crowd on
foot, averaging their daily twenty-five miles or less,
divided it into other stages which had khans of
another sort. So I had to go with the peasants ; and