acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

184 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
over the plain to Kaisariyeh, a huddle of flat roofs
and minarets six miles away. Beyond it the eye
travels on to Yilanli Dagh and other enclosing hills,
and traces the road, the one great artery connecting
the Cappadocian capital with seaports on the Mediterranean,
with the Bagdad Railway, Konia, Constantinople,
and the world. During late afternoon this
road smokes with the dust of arrivinof traffic : with
arahas, riders, waggons, and caravans. They first
come into sight round the brown end of Yilanli Dagh,
and thence may be watched till they reach the city's
western edge.
From Talas, one may notice, too, something of the
domestic habits of Kaisariyeh. On still mornings and
evenings a blue haze gathers among the minarets and
gradually deepens into hanging blue smoke. It comes
from a closely built, compact city of 60,000 souls,
who, at morning and evening, light their mangals, or
braziers of charcoal, and place them on flat roofs or in
the street before bringing them indoors,—that being
the careful native custom.
All natives know that a freshly-lighted mangal is
capable of killing every soul in a closed room, and
are careful therefore in the use of these fires. Incidentally
it may be remarked that they think this
knowledge peculiar to the country, and not shared
by foreigners. Call for a mangal at a khan, and it
is placed outside the door, with explicit instructions
to let it remain there until it has burnt to a clear
glow ;
you may notice also that from time to time
a careful Man-keeper or his man will come and make
sure that you have not been impatient, and that all is
still well with you. To these sophisticated people of
the East a European seems much the simpleton in
many matters.
Dwellers in Talas see no more of Argaeus from their
homes than if that mountain did not exist, although
the summit is not fifteen miles away ; for Ali Dagh
intervenes, a hump of mountain like a vast pit-head
heap, and rises three thousand feet above the town.