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THE CORVEE IN OPERATION 141
corvee, and contained a store of road -repairing tools
—or was supposed to do so, for in one that had been
smashed open I found only a few broken pickaxes
and shovels.
Having seen these buildings every twelve or fifteen
miles and moralised upon them, at last I saw the
corvee itself in operation. Under an overseer, and
watched by two zaptiehs, sixty or seventy men were
labouring on the road. The afternoon was getting
late, and apparently much remained to be done, for
the men worked with an energfv never before seen
by me in Turke3^ They had no wish to come out
the next day, therefore such shovelling went on,
such pickaxe work, such flinging about of stones
and dirt, such speed of movement in all things, as
might have set the example to road- menders the
world over. Watching these forced labourers, I could
not help reflecting that London thoroughfares, if kept
in repair by corvee, would probably be " up " and
*'
down " the same day.
Some distance beyond these assiduous road-menders
the highway dropped into the deep narrow valley of
the Yildiz Irmak, crossed that river by an old stone
bridge, and climbed the high escarpment of the
farther side. This was an elevation high enough
to command the country by which I had come.
It was late afternoon, and the air very bright and
clear. And now, on looking back, I could see the
south-going slow trafiic of the day, like an army on
the march, stretching along the white road and
moving in a haze of dust. As it poured slowly into
the valley and filed over the narrow bridge it looked
like a column of black ants.
There still was sunlight when I arrived at Soyutlu
Khan — Khan of the Place of Willows. The host
told me that Sivas was yet four hours distant, so I
agreed to stay the night and enter the city with
the advantages of morning. The khan and its
surroundings were pleasing, and, I thought, should
incline any traveller to halt. The building was