acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

164 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
ties of Armenian araba-dvivevs.
In his small body he
housed a devil of perversity like few, accompanied
by the proverbial temper ot* a red-haired man, and
the peevishness of an invalid. As I refused to ride,
he kept his horses jingling at my heels to better
my pace. If I stopped for a few minutes he went
on, and left me to overtake him by hard walking or
running — whichever I chose. I told him now to
follow fifty yards behind, but when I
stopped to take
a photograph the contumacious little man went wide
and tried to drive past me again. This time I seized
his horses and backed the araha off the road, amid
such explosions of wrath that I doubted if he were
in his right mind, and doubted more how this journey
would end. He threatened, also, to go back,
and made it necessary to watch him closely lest he
should try to execute his threat. It had been dark
an hour when we dropped into a deep glen, and
ended an unsatisfactory day's travelling in a small
khan at Kayadibi.
I think it was at Kayadibi, the next morning, that
some indefinable influence first made itself felt and
told me I was going south. The country could
hardly have been less southern in appearance ; it
was high and bleak and uncultivated, and warm
sunshine, notwithstanding a sharp edge of cold was
in the wind. One thing, perhaps, which more than
another conveyed a hint of the south, was the sight
of a flat earthen roof and a man rolling it with a
wooden roller. My hhan also was flat-roofed, and
though upon it I found a plentiful growth of young
barley, yet it was a southern roof; and the Mankeeper
said he slept on it in summer.
Beyond Kayadibi the country dogs were the largest
and most savage of any I had met. In build they
were like Newfoundlands, but larger, with black
head or muzzle, yellow body and long curling tail.
From nearly every flock that fed within a half-mile
of the road a dog would presently detach itself and
come lumbering across country to the attack. I had