acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

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142 ACKOSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
two-storied, and white and large, constructed somewhat
in the manner of nave and aisles with clerestory.
Camels knelt before the door. The willows,
though few and straight of growth, were certainly
willows in an otherwise treeless country. At a little
distance, carrying broad lights upon its surface, was
the Kizil Irmak, here four hundred miles from its
mouth, and still a considerable river. Brown hills
enclosed the scene ; the wheels of distant bullock
carts were crying in the valley ; over all was the
peace of evening.
When they led me to a lower room I protested ;
I wanted one on the upper floor, somewhere in the
clerestory.
" There is no such room," said the Ma?i-keeper.
And then taking me by the hand he led me to a
door just beyond the entrance, and tragically throwing
it open bade me look. I looked, and saw nothing
but a void, like the interior of a great barn. The
building had never been completed, and was merely
a pretentious shell. It was a Turkish, or more correctly
an Armenian, speculation that had been misjudged
and come to nothing. To it, as to a pleasant
place of comfortable rooms, and streams and willows
and hills, were to have come many holiday-makers
from Sivas. But their tastes had not been rightly
judged, and they stayed away ; and a gloomy khankeeper
even saw travellers drive past the khan, preferring
to reach Sivas rather than stay here.
And yet the next day I thought another khankeeper
might have done much better. For this one
had deceived me overnight, and to make sure of one
guest at least had certainly doubled the distance to
Sivas. And on top of that he had sought to treble
his charges.