acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

100 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
though interest of some kind lay in the prospect, it
possessed disadvantages too. But I was independent
in the matter of food, and required only a room and
water ; for the rest 1 had to trust to the courtesy
and goodwill seldom wanting in Turkish peasantry.
Beyond Chengel the road followed a beautiful
winding valley, perfectly level in the bottom, every
acre of which was ploughed. Here and there a
solitary tree stood in the midst of the plough. The
hills on either side were steep and naked except for
a few patches of wood, and towards the summits broke
into detached masses of cliff. In the sunlight and
clear air these high - standing rocks looked as if
enamelled in delicate browns and greys and pinks,
and carried themselves with such distinctness against
the sky that distance seemed to have become a
thing variable by effect of atmosphere.
Looking at these cliffs I could have declared they
were not a quarter of a mile away. And yet when
I considered the distant trees, the long steep slopes,
and belt of ploughed flat below, I saw that a mile
and a half at least separated me from the enchanted
rocks.
At the head of this valley, where it closed in to a
mere glen, I came upon a curious scene of Turkish
husbandry. In a strip of field beside the road a man
and his wife were harrowing with the trunk of a
young pine drawn sideways by two small cows. The
woman's part was to add her weight to the harrow
by standing upon it beside the man, the clods being
sun-baked and refractory. Women working in the
fields made a sight familiar enough, but this woman
was exceptional. She was dressed in a garment of
the cloak sort, that blazed with gold and silk embroidery
in scarlet and blue and pink upon a white
ground. Her back was so gorgeous with its spread
of glittering colour and pattern that it seemed to
belong to an altar frontal. Even Achmet, stolid and
incurious as he generally was, gazed with astonishment
at this spectacle in the dusty field, and had