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KUMOURS OF MASSACRE 133
shutting off the dehghtful summer land which surely
must exist beyond. Again the mountains pass out
of sight, and leave you wondering when they will
reappear, and what they will be like, and because
you instinctively measure progress by this distant
goal, you wonder how much closer the}'' will be. You
go on for an hour or two, in dust and heat, passing
slow caravans and vehicles, and almost forgetting
the mountains; but then, on mounting a hill, they
appear again, and this time have become majestic.
Thenceforward, perhaps, they remain always in sight,
growing with each hour, changing in light and shade
under your eyes ; changing, too from blue to green
and brown, and showing scrub and forest, rock and
valley and rib, till all features become clear. Presently
you see a thread of road slanting high round
a mountain spur, to reach which your present way
must turn aside for several miles, and take you
wandering among foot-hills where, as you think,
must be your evening khan. But soon a long
valley opens right before you, and in it your khan
is visible, and also the road going on up the valley
to a saddle above, and the high slanting path turns
out to be merely the track to some mountain village.
Many times on the long roads of Asia Minor you
may spend a day like this.
At the foot of Chamli Bel, just before the road
began to climb, was a straggling Circassian kha7i
where they told rumours of the kind I had heard at
Tokat. But here these rumours had got definitely
to the killing of Armenians at Yeni Khan, a town
beyond the pass, where I proposed to spend the
night. Rumour also said that troops and gendarmerie
were on the march from Sivas to the
scene of disturbance.
At least a dozen elderly Circassians, inhabitants
of a village not far away, were loitering about this
khan. I had reason to suspect afterwards that
young men from this side of the mountain had been
sent to Yeni Khan. No doubt there was a wish on