acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

176 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
mitted, and keeping a military eye on the condition of
roads and bridges, as is the custom of consuls in Asia
Minor. On learning who he was I understood
much besides, I might have known, indeed, that the
mj^steriously important passenger must be a British
consul, and no other. The manner of the servants,
the indefinable something they imparted to the horses
and araba, and way of going, represented their views,
and these views reflected the prestige which the
consuls enjoy on behalf of their country.
Mount Argaeus had played hide-and-seek with me
daily ever since from the ridge of Terja Dagh I first
saw his shadowy summit against the sky. He grew
more and more majestic with each reappearance, and
to a solitary pedestrian it became an interesting
speculation when he would reveal himself again, and
what changes he would show them. Soon after leaving
Sultan Khan the road went up to a ridge from w^hich
Argaeus could be seen almost to his base. He was a
mighty, irregular cone, thirty miles away, standing
against a cloudless sky. His spreading lower slopes
were purple, and above them rose gleaming snow,
broken by rock and precipice whose surface was made
violet blue by distance. Viewed from this ridge he
dominated everything, as well he might, for he is a
mountain of 13,300 feet, standing alone, and so compact
in form that you may easily walk round his base
in three days. Thenceforward he was always in sight,
and drew the eye to him ever as one of the world's
great isolated peaks seen now at his best.
From the same ridge, a long slope known as Lale
Bel descends gradually towards the plain of Ccesarea.
No spot in Asia Minor has a worse name for death
by snow. It is said to be the haunt in winter of a
local blizzard, the geomej, which comes almost without
warning ; and is so violent, and accompanied by such
blinding snow and cold, that to be caught in it involves
great risk. The only refuge for those so waylaid is a
guard-house midway down the slope. In this manner
Lale Bel had been described for my benefit by several