acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

138 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
and both parties arrived in time. Moslem blood
had been spilt, however, and the fanatics had not
yet given up hope of exacting blood for blood and
something over.
They were still in an ugly temper, and seeing no
good purpose in my visit regarded me with dark
looks. Here for the first time the epithet '' shapkaW
—hatted man,—a term of dislike or contempt used
by Moslems for Europeans, was flung at me in the
street. The point of offence is said to be that the
brim of a hat advertises the wearer's indifference to
getting an instant view of the Madhi when he shall
appear from heaven. After one short turn through
the town I thought it better to remain at the khan.
It happened that the window of my room overlooked
a small open space of grass and bare earth
with a ragged tree growing in the midst. Looking
from this window early the next morning I saw a
crowd of men almost filling the open space. They
stood in silence, immovable as statues, and watched
with rapt attention some performance that seemed
to be in progress. It was a little while before I
ascertained the cause of all this fixed interest. I
then made out the piece of ground to be the town
slaughter -yard, where goats and sheep were beingkilled
and hoisted to the tree for flaying and bleeding.
When a camel was brought in and killed—one that
had broken down on the road I supposed—the crowd
appeared to find more interest than ever. The backs
of a crowd have been said to be more clearly expressive
of general emotion than a sea of faces, and so
I thought them here, where their motionless watching
attitudes seemed to show an interest unduly strained
and acute. And then I remembered the events of
the past three days, and knew that what I now
perceived was the truth, and that the interest shown
was the interest of a disappointed mood.
An extraordinary number of Circassians were
abroad this morning as I left Yeni Khan, and all
of them seemed to possess bullock - carts. Usually